Fourth of July--Coney Island 2 4 - 1958

Robert Frank made this photographic work, Fourth of July--Coney Island 2, using film and light. It’s about how we put things together, how we string images, memories, and moments into some semblance of meaning. I see the materiality of the film itself—the sprocket holes, the frame edges—as part of the story. It reminds me that seeing is not seamless; it’s broken up, sequential. Each frame is a little peek into a world, darks and lights colliding. That grainy texture, it’s not about perfection. It's real. The dark frames on the film strip offer a kind of counterpoint to those with light, creating a rhythm. It makes me think of other artists like Gerhard Richter, who embraced chance and imperfection. Art is an ongoing conversation, about how we see, what we remember, and how we piece it all together. It’s about uncertainty, not answers.