Hollywood sign--Hollywood 52 1958

Curator: Here we have Robert Frank's "Hollywood sign--Hollywood 52," a contact print made in 1958. What catches your eye first? Editor: It's the grittiness that immediately hits me. The multiple exposures and contact sheet format feel so raw and immediate. Curator: Exactly. As a contact print, the material presentation shows the process behind production; the emulsion, the film type labeled alongside the image, that the images are captured and displayed, uncut and raw. It invites us to consider the act of image-making itself, Frank’s hand at work. Editor: And that hand is so clearly wrestling with the myth of Hollywood. We see it deconstructed, not the glamorous finished product, but a series of near misses and fragments. He critiques that promise through the manipulation of the image's own surface and format. Curator: Definitely. The multiple exposures layer various aspects of the scene, including urban streets and housing, atop one another and challenge the one-dimensional narrative that Hollywood often pushes, drawing us to understand that city as not just a monolith but one defined through multiplicity and often, struggle. Editor: I’m thinking about the broader context of the 1950s, this postwar boom that constructed images of suburban utopia in Hollywood. Frank, an immigrant himself, reveals that for many, this promise was exclusionary and unattainable. Curator: And it makes me think of Frank's own position, outside yet observing this machine, almost like a documentarian laboring to unveil its inner mechanisms to create an anti-advertisement. The dark tones underscore the dark sides of celebrity and the business itself, where he has the contact sheets as his form to challenge these myths. Editor: Ultimately, "Hollywood Sign--Hollywood 52" provides such layered interpretations. Curator: Indeed, Frank pulls apart the dream factory using its own materials. It remains a vital contribution.