J.L.A. IV c. mid to late 1950s

Robert Frank made "J.L.A. IV" using photography, and what strikes me is the serial nature of the images laid out like a storyboard. This really speaks to my love of artmaking as a process. The filmstrip format exposes the raw, material aspect of photography. The texture is grainy, the contrast stark. Look at the sequence of images in the middle, the shadows falling over an object on the ground like some kind of ritual. The way the light and shadow play in those frames creates a mood that is at once mysterious, surreal, and yet, utterly mundane. Frank's work reminds me of Ed Ruscha's photographic books, sharing that documentarian impulse, but also a certain poetry in the everyday. Art is about seeing, thinking, and experiencing the world differently, and Frank does just that. He shows us that meaning isn't fixed but emerges through the sequence and juxtaposition.