Robert Frank

Robert Frank is considered the father of Street Photography. Many of his pictures were shot from the hip, from a driving car, in the middle of a bar, or hidden in the park. “I had to be very fast when I was photographing people,” he says, explaining the way he took pictures in the mid fifties, when he was travelling around America.

Newspapers also have to be very fast: written in the afternoon, printed at night, delivered in the morning. With this in mind it is perfectly consistent that Frank's pictures were not presented as expensive gelatin silver prints, framed for eternity, but appeared on the pages that reinterpreted the world, the paper on which the Süddeutsche Zeitung (South German Newspaper) was printed day by day.

Printed onto rolls of newspaper
Robert Frank's complete works have been printed in acrylic inks onto rolls of newspaper and pasted directly onto the walls. When Frank – who was in his small house in Mabou, Canada, at the time – first heard about the idea, his comment was, “Cheap, quick and dirty, that's how I like it!”

It was Frank's express wish that this exhibition reach a younger public around the world. From Munich it will go to New York, then to eight cities in German-speaking countries, and to around 50 locations all over the globe. At each exhibition, the individual rolls of paper will be hung at the discretion of the organizers; they can be treated disrespectfully and, depending on the spaces, cut or glued together if necessary.

In addition, two of Frank's films are being shown within the framework of the exhibition: Pull My Daisy (1959, 28 min.) and Me and My Brother (1965-68, 85 min.).

Further information at: Akademie der Bildenden Künste and Süddeutsche Zeitung