Family--Early New York City 5 c. 1955

Robert Frank made this contact sheet, "Family--Early New York City 5," using gelatin silver and red pencil. Frank isn’t precious with the image, you see all the raw materials: the film edge markings, the rebate numbers, which lend a sense of immediacy, as though we're sitting right there with Frank in his darkroom. The red pencil feels like an extension of his thought process, circling, connecting, and excluding images, like a painter using preparatory sketches. The images themselves appear to be different family groupings, people eating, and cityscapes. Each frame is a new constellation of ideas, like color combinations, and each shot a little bit different. Frank's sequencing reminds me of Gerhard Richter's "4900 Colours." Both artists embrace chance and randomness, allowing the process to guide the final outcome. Just as Richter explored color relationships through seriality, Frank explored the complexity of human relationships through the arrangement of photographic images. Ultimately, both artists show us that art is a conversation, a back-and-forth between intention and accident.