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The “Unseen” Photography of Robert Frank The “Unseen” Photography of Robert Frank
Art

The “Unseen” Photography of Robert Frank

An Interview with Martin Gasser
Ania Diduch, Wojtek Wieteska
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time 4 minutes
Ania Diduch:
Art historian who gave up writing about art for the love of design, art curator, and minimalism lover.
Wojtek Wieteska:
is an artist, director, Doctor of Visual Arts. He composes images, constructs novels, and sketches essays. As he claims, "It's better than writing because photographs are faster than words." He studied at the Department of Cinematography and TV Production at the Lodz Film School, as well as art history at the University of Warsaw and Université Paris Sorbonne. He has 17 years of experience as a university lecturer. He has been photographing since the age of 13, and his series have been exhibited in Krakow, Warsaw, and Lodz, among others.

60 years ago, Swiss-American photographer Robert Frank’s photobook The Americans was published in the US. A series of striking images shot on the road, Frank’s collection cut through the country’s supposed post-war prosperity to show a side of American society ridden with anxiety, despair and loneliness. Jack Kerouac, the Beat poet who wrote the introduction to The Americans, put it thusly: “To Robert Frank I now give you this message: You got eyes.”

Wnętrze wystawy/fragment ekspozycji: stykówka The Americans.
Wnętrze wystawy/fragment ekspozycji: stykówka The Americans.

Frank himself may have had eyes, but the irony was that American

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Ania Diduch:
Art historian who gave up writing about art for the love of design, art curator, and minimalism lover.
Wojtek Wieteska:
is an artist, director, Doctor of Visual Arts. He composes images, constructs novels, and sketches essays. As he claims, "It's better than writing because photographs are faster than words." He studied at the Department of Cinematography and TV Production at the Lodz Film School, as well as art history at the University of Warsaw and Université Paris Sorbonne. He has 17 years of experience as a university lecturer. He has been photographing since the age of 13, and his series have been exhibited in Krakow, Warsaw, and Lodz, among others.
Publish date: 12.11.2019

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What he loved the most about photography – the possibility of encapsulating a fleeting moment forever on film – became his curse. The deaths he captured in his photographs would remain etched inside him, in his mind and body. After his return from the Rwandan hell, Salgado began suffering from various ailments. Infections were blooming all over his body. When making love with his wife, he would ejaculate blood instead of semen. After a series of tests, his doctor told him: “Sebastião, you aren’t ill. Your prostate is in perfect condition. But you have seen so much death you are starting to die yourself. You must stop doing what you do, or you will end up dead.”

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