Guggenheim 765--New York City 1956

Curator: This gelatin-silver print, "Guggenheim 765--New York City," comes to us from the renowned photographer Robert Frank, circa 1956. What strikes you about it? Editor: Rawness, definitely. It’s a chaotic sprawl of moments caught on film, like memories strewn across a table. Darkroom detritus elevated into…art? Curator: It does feel fragmented. We see strips of 35mm film, each frame offering a glimpse into mid-century New York life—a wedding, perhaps, someone studying blueprints, even what looks like a public official. These aren’t polished, staged images. Frank's photography captured ordinary subjects and gave new artistic insight into everyday life in America. Editor: True, but the 'ordinary' is what grabs me. This isn't posed perfection; it’s gritty, a bit blurry even. It gives a behind-the-scenes feel – almost like glimpsing the photographer’s own contact sheet and his inner life. And a contact sheet is more spontaneous, immediate... a place before editing happened. What do you see in the film strips? Curator: I see recurring themes: ceremony and work, the individual and the crowd. Frank’s images were always deeply concerned with social structures and power dynamics. Take that image near the center of the film, highlighted with a thin, red square: it seems to depict scaffolding or construction, another theme in Frank's works. We see it repeated in several of his projects as symbolic. Editor: Scaffolding as symbolic… interesting. I see it now. It looks less chaotic now and almost arranged or structured in rows...Frank’s almost creating his own grid out of random shots and then the grid of the negatives itself! Curator: Indeed, it seems to anticipate digital image grids and internet layouts and even collage art that's very similar to what was done in this artwork by Robert Frank! He was a true pioneer. Editor: A pioneer indeed! Now I'm thinking this haphazardness is all intentional – maybe Frank wanted us to question how we string together narratives. Memory doesn’t come to us in perfect sequences; why should art? It really stays with you.