Train tracks--Transportation 1941 - 1945

Editor: Here we have Robert Frank’s “Train Tracks—Transportation,” a gelatin silver print from the early 1940s. The landscape is stark, mostly snow. It has such a bleak mood to it. What captures your attention most in this piece? Curator: The bleakness, as you say, is precisely what resonates. Look at the materiality of the gelatin silver print itself. This wasn’t mass-produced, digitally altered, or immediately available. The physical act of creating this image, developing it in a darkroom, represents labor. Consider the context: the early 1940s, during wartime. Resources were scarce, and the railways, often vital for wartime supply chains, here appear quiet and inactive. Editor: So, it’s about the implications of both making the photograph and what it represents? The lack of action is almost louder than any visual object. Curator: Precisely! Think about the social context surrounding transportation then. Railways moved goods and people, contributing directly to economies both thriving and failing in wartimes. But also, how were photographs circulated in this moment? As propaganda or historical record? Editor: The scarcity in this print compared to images overflowing the internet is striking. Now that I think about it, seeing “transportation” in such a barren form is thought-provoking given how obsessed we are with speed and getting places. Curator: Exactly. The value, not in speed or movement, but of labour behind both the industrial and artistic endeavor, isn't always readily visible but completely transforms how one may interact and understand the scene and its setting. Editor: I never considered photography in light of industrial processes, it’s insightful to think of even artistic material through its context of production and circulation. Thank you. Curator: And I am challenged to reconsider how images carry traces of the time that the photograph comes from. Thank you.