Convention 10 1956

Robert Frank made this contact sheet, Convention 10, with photography, with light sensitive paper, through a lens. I'm looking at the high contrast of black and white, and the various exposures, and the indexical trace. It’s a collection of moments, arranged in strips, like a film. What was Frank thinking when he made this? What was he seeing? I imagine he was thinking about time, and how to capture a sense of unfolding. He might have been interested in how to create narrative, and how to compress it. There is a sense of documentary, but not just a record. He's framing a mood, a feeling, and it reminds me of someone like Gerhard Richter, but in photography. It's like a painting that captures a mood, an atmosphere, a moment of thought. These artists are in conversation, and each inspires the other to imagine new ways of seeing. It’s about uncertainty, about the beauty of things falling apart, and how that can lead to new ways of seeing.