Guggenheim 544--Pasadena Museum of Art, Pasadena, and Forest Lawn Cemetery, Glendale, California 1955 - 1956

Robert Frank made this contact sheet, a gelatin silver print, which he titled Guggenheim 544, featuring Pasadena Museum of Art, Pasadena, and Forest Lawn Cemetery, Glendale, California. I imagine Frank wandering around, shooting from the hip. What's so interesting about the contact sheet is the evidence of the artist's eye. I love that he circled certain frames, like the headstones and bunches of flowers, with grease pencil. Why these ones and not the others? Maybe they're poignant, even haunting, echoing the stillness of death against the bustling scenes from daily life. It’s interesting to see the world through Frank’s lens, quite literally, as he grapples with themes of mortality and the everyday. It reminds me of work by other photographers who play with the mundane, but Frank’s got that edge, that raw sensibility, that just gets under your skin. I think the work of other artists keeps me going, like an ongoing conversation, a kind of call and response. It’s about embracing the questions and trusting that the answers will emerge. It’s about being open to the possibilities that lie within the unknown.