Hollywood 56 1958

Robert Frank’s ‘Hollywood 56’ is a photographic work of images captured on celluloid film. It reveals something about the process of photography. What’s interesting here is seeing the full strip, the texture of the film itself. In the strip Frank seems to be playing with different types of exposures. I can almost see him in the darkroom, playing with the light and chemicals, deciding which images to print and which to leave as ghosts on the film. There’s a particular frame that catches my eye. I see a small group of people, maybe on a film set, standing around. They’re out of focus, almost like they’re dissolving into the background. It's like they are not the stars of the show, but rather part of the backdrop, ordinary folks in the land of dreams. Frank was someone who made pictures like he was writing poems, raw and immediate. Like Diane Arbus, he managed to capture the underbelly of American life in ways that were both disturbing and beautiful. Ultimately, art is about asking questions, not giving answers, and Frank certainly knew how to ask the right ones.