Guggenheim 77/Americans 5--Detroit 1955

Robert Frank made "Guggenheim 77/Americans 5--Detroit" with gelatin silver print. It's a contact sheet, right? So, the process is laid bare for us, the artist's choices visible. I love how Frank is thinking through the image-making, editing and selecting, playing with the sequence like a deck of cards. The red marks, like a painter's underpainting, reveal a subjective touch, a human hand guiding our gaze. Look at the variety of images here, all these people going about their lives. Each frame, like a daub of paint, contributes to a larger, more complex picture. Frank, like a number of photographers in the 60s and 70s reminds me a little of Garry Winogrand, or even Diane Arbus; he's thinking about what America looks like from the ground up. Seeing an image as an ongoing conversation across time. It's a reminder that art embraces ambiguity, and multiple interpretations.