Building facade, Paris 1951

This black and white photograph shows a building facade in Paris, captured by Robert Frank. Look at the columns, how they rhythmically divide the image into layers. The light falls unevenly, casting shadows that sculpt the stone and add depth. I wonder what it was like to stand where Frank stood, his eye pressed to the viewfinder. Did he feel dwarfed by the scale of the architecture? Or did he sense a kind of kindred spirit in the building’s silent, enduring presence? There’s something about the graininess of the photograph that makes me think about time, like a memory slowly fading. This connects it, for me, to the work of painters such as Gerhard Richter, who often used blurred or degraded imagery to evoke memory and history. All art is, I guess, like a conversation between artists across time, each building on the ideas and techniques of those who came before, finding new ways to see and feel and express.