Guggenheim 644--Chinese cemetery, San Francisco c. 1956

Robert Frank’s photowork *Guggenheim 644--Chinese cemetery, San Francisco*, shows us film strips, testaments to the artist's photographic wanderings. The artist's decision to show us the strips like this feels kind of vulnerable, like he's letting us into his process of trial and error. I imagine him walking through the cemetery, camera in hand, searching for the right angle, the right light, the right mood. There is a poignancy in the cemetery scenes, with the contrast between the stillness of the graves and the hustle and bustle of San Francisco. The film strip as a whole seems to speak to something about memory, mortality, and the passage of time. Frank is definitely in dialogue with Walker Evans, but maybe also with later artists like Gerhard Richter, who also use photography to explore questions of history, memory, and representation. It reminds us that artists are always building on what came before, borrowing, stealing, and transforming ideas in the ongoing conversation that is art history.