From car--New York City no number 1954

Robert Frank created this contact sheet of small black and white photographs, sometime in the middle of the last century. Looking at these strips of images, I feel like I’m riffling through Frank’s memories. What was he thinking as he drove around New York City, snapping these shots? The boy staring out of a window, the wing of a car, buildings and bridges. Together they suggest a narrative, but fragments of something else. I love the roughness of this sheet. The smudges and scratches. It’s like a painter's canvas, bearing the traces of the artist’s hand and mind. Frank was part of a generation who were transforming photography into something expressive and subjective. He was in conversation with painters like Pollock and De Kooning, who were also trying to capture the energy and chaos of modern life. The sequence of images offers a glimpse into the way Frank saw and experienced the world, always on the move. It reminds me that art isn’t just about making pretty pictures, but about trying to make sense of things.