Guggenheim 389--Gallup, New Mexico 1955

This photographic print called Guggenheim 389--Gallup, New Mexico was made by Robert Frank. It’s a series of black and white frames with some red circling certain images. I wonder what Frank was thinking when he was making these exposures. Was he trying to find something? Was he trying to show us something about America? There is a sense of distance and observation that makes me think he was trying to capture something bigger than just a photo. Think about the physicality of the darkroom and how Frank would have been wrestling with the paper. Look at how the textures of the emulsion react in each of these little windows. There is something really beautiful and powerful here in these film strips, they remind me of a more fragmented Gerhard Richter. It makes you realize that artists are always talking to each other through time.