Whitney 6 1958

Robert Frank’s “Whitney 6” captures rows of images on a single sheet, probably sometime in the 1960s. I love this work! It looks like outtakes from a documentary film, only captured in still photography: the artist at work moving within the Whitney, capturing the paintings and the people looking at the paintings. I can only imagine what Frank was thinking when he shot these rolls of film. Maybe about the ways we frame art? The social performance of looking? The way the city lights look at night? These small black and white photographs echo and frame one another across time, each strip of film revealing different aspects of our experience, and reflecting, refracting, and transforming it in turn. As an artist I often have conversations with the work of other artists, alive or dead. Frank is part of this conversation with me now; perhaps we might even be said to be co-creating something new.