Cocksucker Blues 1972

Robert Frank’s photographic sheet, Cocksucker Blues, is a triptych of Mick Jagger, made during the Rolling Stones' 1972 tour. The grainy black and white feels raw, immediate, like a snapshot straight from life's messy reel. There’s something about the texture here that grabs me – it's not polished, it’s not trying to be perfect. Look at the way Frank captures the light, the way it dances across Jagger’s face, almost dissolving his features in a haze of rockstar energy. The bottom frame, with Jagger in shades and a cigarette, is especially telling – a moment caught, a mask slipping. Frank’s work always felt like a punk gesture to me, a refusal to play by the rules. It reminds me a bit of Nan Goldin, in its unflinching gaze and its ability to find beauty in the mundane, the messy, the real. It’s about embracing the ambiguity, the contradictions, and letting the work speak for itself.