Cowboys no number 1954

Robert Frank’s contact sheet, *Cowboys no number*, shows us the artist playing with the documentary form. He shoots a staged scene – or are these real cowboys just hanging out? – but then reveals all the outtakes, the in-between moments, the tries that didn’t quite work. Look at the way the film strip organizes the images in a grid, a bit like a minimalist painting. Each frame is a gesture, a mark in time and space. It’s not just about the subject, but the act of framing itself. The high contrast, the graininess, all create a kind of raw, immediate feel. It’s like we’re seeing Frank’s thought process, his way of seeing the world. I’m reminded of conceptual artists like Sol LeWitt who used serial imagery to explore the idea of art as a system of rules and variations. Frank’s contact sheet does something similar, but with a humanistic twist. It’s a reminder that even in the most seemingly objective forms of representation, there’s always a subjective point of view at play.