Guggenheim 614--Westlake, California c. 1956

This is Robert Frank's "Guggenheim 614--Westlake, California," a photo contact sheet, and it’s like looking at a painter's preparatory sketches, or maybe the studio floor after a long day. I wonder, what was Frank thinking as he shot these frames? It feels like he was trying to catch something about California—a kind of suburban alienation, or the newness of it all. The filmstrip format makes me think of the moving image, the movies—a quintessentially Californian subject. The contact sheet shows the outtakes, the circling, the choices. Photographers think in terms of time, but they often seem to freeze time, while painters have to compress everything into one go. I like seeing Frank's process here; it reminds me that all art making is about editing, choosing, and framing a view. We're all in conversation with each other, artists across time, borrowing, stealing, and transforming. It's messy, intuitive, and endlessly fascinating.