June/Paolo Roversi c. 2012

This Polaroid, June/Paolo Roversi, made by Robert Frank, captures a moment with the softest of light and a muted palette, like colors remembered rather than seen. It's a slice of life, a little stage where time seems to pause. Look at the way the light pools around the figures, how it flattens the space. The photograph is raw, almost casual, like a sketch rather than a finished painting. The gray tiles dominate, a grid organizing the domestic scene. Are those photographs on the floor? And what is June smoking? It makes me think of Nan Goldin, another photographer who blurs the line between personal and public. Like Goldin's work, there's a sense of intimacy here, but also a detachment, as if we're peering in on a world that's both familiar and distant. Frank isn’t trying to impress anyone, he's just showing us what he sees. And in that act of seeing, he invites us to look closer, to feel something, even if we're not quite sure what that something is.