Switzerland 13 1961

Robert Frank shot this roll of Kodak Safety Film, titled Switzerland 13, sometime during his life. It's a contact sheet, a series of small, related images all in a row, like a musical score that you read from left to right, top to bottom. I can imagine Frank looking at these images, one by one, wondering if he’s got anything good. He’s made a selection using a red grease pencil, like a painter editing and re-editing with paint. The red outlines connect disparate images, creating rhythms, visual echoes, or maybe little narratives. Photography is like painting – you start with a blank surface and then decide what to put in and what to leave out. With this contact sheet, Frank is inviting us into his process, his way of seeing. I bet he felt like he was onto something here. It reminds me of other artists, like Gerhard Richter, who used photography as source material for paintings. It’s all one big conversation, right? A continuous exchange of ideas across time.