Times Square--New York City 16 c. 1961

This is Robert Frank’s “Times Square--New York City 16”, a gelatin silver print, and what strikes me first is the unedited film reel. It gives us a glimpse into Frank’s process, the before and after, the outtakes, all laid bare. The texture is raw, the blacks deep and velvety, punctuated by stark, almost glaring highlights. You can almost feel the graininess of the film, the gritty reality of Times Square seeping through. Look at the sequence in the second row, the way the light spills across the diner counter. It’s like a stage set, and the people are actors caught in a fleeting drama. There is a tension between the candid nature of the shots and the deliberate act of selection. It’s this tension, this push and pull, that makes Frank’s work so compelling. Think about how the filmstrip as a whole hints at the work of someone like Christian Marclay, who's also interested in the material qualities of film. Both artists invite us to see the beauty in the overlooked, the accidental, and the ephemeral.