Florence--Italy 7 1964

Robert Frank's "Florence--Italy 7" is a black and white photographic contact sheet, a map of captured moments in time and space. I imagine Frank, squinting through the camera's viewfinder, wrestling with angles and light, just trying to get it right. The subject is the architecture, monuments, and piazzas of the city. There's a wonderful sense of immediacy, like he is capturing the pulse of everyday life as it unfolds. The repetition creates a rhythm, like the ebb and flow of a painter's brushstroke, a gesture of observation and documentation. Some of the frames are overexposed, underexposed, or blurry. As a painter, I’m interested in the physicality of the medium, how it can communicate feeling, intention, or meaning. It reminds me of the work of other artists, like Gerhard Richter. This piece relates to Frank's wider practice, his exploration of the human condition. What is it to be alive, to witness, and to record? Artists are in an ongoing conversation across time, inspiring one another’s creativity.