One thing about living in Paris that's hard to get over: art.  Having never lived in a city littered with museums, it's fun to try to keep up with it all.  Nearly every weekend I meet friends to see something that's showing, and it always seems the rest of Paris is there with us.   Insider tip: always go to exhibits during the week, if possible, and never go to see something on the final weekend.  My room mate and I tried recently to see a Picasso exhibit at the Grand Palais.  It was so popular that they decided to open it 24/7 for the last few days, and when we arrived one morning at 6AM, the wait to get in was still five hours.  Going to museums in Paris, it seems, is as natural as loitering at a shopping mall when you're thirteen, live in the American suburbs, and can't drive.  Imagine if I'd had my entire adolescence to ride the metro and drift through museums, rather than hang around the local Barnes and Noble.  Oh, Paris.  How early you begin to culture your children.
 
For Christmas, I received Robert Frank's The Americans.  At the time, I didn't know there'd be an exhibit of the very same work upon my return to the city.  I went with a handful of people who had never heard of Robert Frank or of the book, and I felt a little obsessive examining every photograph and explaining the number of times I'd studied each one--of how Frank and the book had changed photography.


Seeing photography in person can be strange; sometimes the photos aren't as sharp as you had imagined, or you can see a chemical splotch on the print, or maybe you see something tiny that you had never noticed before.  With Frank's work, I was surprised to see the structure of the film grain, and how much more present it seemed in the prints than in the book.

In addition to The Americans, the exhibit also has some of Frank's work on Paris, which is a contrast of architecture, content, and time period, but also of style.  His work on Paris seems completely different to me.  Unfortunately I haven't been able to find much of it online, but I highly recommend the book. 

It's strange to live in a city so photographed.  Many of the places constructed hundreds of years ago remain unchanged, and photos I've studied that were taken in the 1830s look nearly identical to the city I live in today.  Other areas have been erased or hidden.  But there's something thrilling about finding yourself in an art gallery looking at work by a master, and discovering your street corner featured prominently in one of the photographs.  That will be a moment I never forget.


Also included in the exhibit are two films that Frank made.  One of them is black and white with characters and a loose plot, which I didn't find terribly interesting.  The other was shot by Frank in his own home, where he interacts with his wife, talks directly to the camera, and does things like chop through brush or get friends to move heavy trees through the yard.  There's something really delightful about seeing where an artist works, and finding out how he interacts with people.  If Robert Frank had a YouTube page, that film would be on it.

If you find yourself in Paris before the 22nd of March, don't miss it.  Here's a link to the exhibition page online.  You can read more about the exhibit or what else is showing at the museum here.