Edition 2018

Robert Frank

Sidelines

Closed on 23 September 2018
One of the world’s most significant and influential photographers, Robert Frank has continually questioned and re-invented the photographic image and explored the narrative potential of sequences of photographs. Sixty years ago, in 1958, Robert Delpire in Paris published the first edition of his seminal book Les Américains. However, this perhaps most influential book in the history of photography was no spontaneous stroke of genius. The exhibition Sidelines on one hand retraces the evolution of the artist’s expressive style and his uncompromising search for a subjective truth before 1958 with series of photographs from Switzerland, Europe and South America. On the other it focuses on hitherto almost unknown pictures made in the 1950s while Frank was traveling in the US for Les Américains. Images that remained unpublished for editorial reasons and are now put into context with a select group of the famous classics from the book that shocked the world when it came out.

Exhibition curator: Martin Gasser.
Publication: Les Américains (new edition), Delpire, 2018.

Exhibition produced by Fotostiftung Schweiz in partnership with the Rencontres d'Arles.
With support from the Swiss Confederation, the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, Olympus and ARTE.

Along with the exhibition, Laura Israel’s documentary Don’t Blink - Robert Frank (Robert Frank, l’Amérique dans le viseur), produced by Assemblage Films in association with ARTE France, is being shown at the Espace Van Gogh.

  • Institutional partners

    • République Française
    • Région Provence Alpes Côté d'Azur
    • Département des Bouches du Rhône
    • Arles
    • Le Centre des monuments nationaux est heureux de soutenir les Rencontres de la Photographie d’Arles en accueillant des expositions dans l’abbaye de Montmajour
  • Main partners

    • Fondation LUMA
    • BMW
    • SNCF
    • Kering
  • Media partners

    • Arte
    • Lci
    • Konbini
    • Le Point
    • Madame Figaro
    • France Culture