Guggenheim 698--Anaconda, Montana 1956

Robert Frank made this photographic contact sheet, Anaconda, Montana, sometime during his career. It's raw, like a painter's unused canvas, full of possibilities. The red grease pencil marks, the numbering, the circles and the big question marks create a conversation between the photographer and his images. I'm drawn to the texture of the film itself, the way the light catches on the sprocket holes, the slight imperfections, the dust. Each frame is a tiny world, a moment captured, but it's the arrangement, the editing, that gives it meaning. Frank isn't hiding the process; he's showing us his thought process. There's a tension between the individual frames and the whole. It reminds me of Rauschenberg's combines, where disparate elements come together to create a new kind of reality. Art isn't about perfection, it's about exploration and experimentation, and Frank embraces that fully.