Guggenheim 548--Pasadena 1955 - 1956

This contact sheet called Guggenheim 548--Pasadena, was made by Robert Frank, probably sometime in the middle of the 20th century. The image shows multiple frames, each a little window onto a different scene – a crowd, cars, landscapes with figures, and shop fronts. I’m thinking about Frank walking around with his camera, seeing these moments, quickly snapping each one. What catches his eye? What does he want to remember? Each frame feels a bit like a sketch, or a note. The red circles are like the artist going back in and editing the images. And it makes me think of other artists and how, for example, Gerhard Richter also made big paintings out of small, blurry, greyscale photographs. So, maybe Frank was onto something! These small-scale images were used to create a kind of archive. Each one is evidence of a moment, but together they produce a bigger picture.