Hollywood sign--Hollywood 59 1958

Robert Frank made this piece, "Hollywood sign-Hollywood 59," using gelatin silver print. It's a contact sheet, so we get to see all the variations, the outtakes, a whole process laid bare. The image is mostly grey. Like, the grey of a faded dream, or a memory struggling to surface. Look closely at how the Hollywood sign flickers in and out of focus across the frames. It's almost like he’s not trying to capture the sign itself, but something more elusive – the idea of Hollywood, maybe? There's something about seeing the entire roll that feels so honest. Frank isn't presenting us with a perfect, polished image, but with the messy, imperfect reality of image-making. It reminds me of the work of someone like Gerhard Richter, who also embraced chance and imperfection in his paintings. They are both reminding us that art isn't about capturing a fixed reality, but about embracing ambiguity, and opening up possibilities.