Guggenheim 361--Houston, Texas 1955

This is Robert Frank’s "Guggenheim 361--Houston, Texas", a gelatin silver print pasted on paperboard. It's easy to imagine Robert Frank out on the streets, camera in hand, ready to capture fleeting moments. He's a bit of a magpie, collecting fragments of reality and arranging them on the page like pieces of a puzzle. The seriality of the film strip is echoed in the repetition of forms and figures. See the blur of motion, the way light and shadow dance across surfaces, and the rhythm of the street scene. Frank might have been thinking about the relationship between photography and memory, or about the way images can both capture and distort reality. Just like painting, photography can allow us to see the world in new and unexpected ways. I think of other artists who have explored similar themes of urban life and visual perception like Garry Winogrand. Frank reminds us that art is not just about capturing reality, it's also about creating it.