11.5.10

the americans


i've been obsessed with robert frank's photogrophy lately. with a guggenheim grant under his belt, frank took off across the country; a trip that became documented in his book the americans, published in '59. i know of few artists who capture wanderlust so well -- jack kerouac is the only other that comes to mind. fittingly, kerouac wrote the introduction. he writes, in part:

"madroad driving men ahead -- the mad road, lonely, leading around the bend into the openings of space towards the horizon wasatch snows promised us in the vision of the west, spine heights at the world's end, coast of blue pacific starry night -- nobone half-banana moons sloping in the tangled night sky, the torments of great formations in mist, the huddled invisible insect in the car racing onward, illuminate -- the raw cut, the drag, the butte, the star, the draw, the sunflower in the grass -- orangebutted west lands of arcadia, forlorn sands of the isolate earth, dewy exposures to infinity in black space, home of the rattlesnake and the gopher -- the level of the world, low and flat: the charging restless mute unvoiced road keening in a seizure of tarpaulin power into the route, fabulous plots of landowners in green unexpecteds, ditches by the side of the road, as i look."

here are some examples of frank's photography. he captures something amazing.













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