Trip south--Seville and Malaga, Spain 13/Lines of My Hand 37 1952

Robert Frank, who died in 2019, made this photographic contact sheet from his trip south to Seville and Malaga, in Spain. I love the idea of the contact sheet as a finished work, it reminds me so much of the way painters build up layers, leaving traces of their process. Here, Frank uses it to show us the raw material, the before and after, the moments of decision. The gritty blacks and whites, those high contrast scenes, they feel so honest, you know? Check out the red marks he made, almost violently scratching across the surface. It’s like he’s saying, "Pay attention here! This is what matters." He's not just showing us pictures, he's showing us how he sees. It makes me think of the work of Nan Goldin, where the snapshot becomes a raw diary of lived experience. It's a way of making art that feels immediate, like a conversation, full of questions and never quite settled.