Paris 95B 1951 - 1952

Robert Frank’s "Paris 95B" is a photographic work that shows a sequence of film negatives, like pages from a diary, offering a glimpse into the artist’s experiences. The sequence evokes the relentless passage of time and captures the essence of fleeting moments in life. Consider the motif of the street scenes. They echo the "flâneur" tradition, the act of observing modern life that we have seen over the years with Baudelaire and Manet in their paintings. The figures captured in Frank's photographs, often anonymous, recall the way people are represented in Impressionist paintings, revealing a sense of alienation. The photograph evokes the psychological weight of modern life, mirroring feelings of isolation and detachment that resonate with the anxieties of modernity, reminding us of the ever-changing dance between the observer and the observed. This sequence shows that symbols and feelings are not linear, and they appear, disappear and reappear in different ways over time.