Guggenheim 114/Americans 16--New York City 1955

Robert Frank's contact sheet, *Guggenheim 114/Americans 16--New York City*, shows us his working process – how he selected images for his book, *The Americans*. It’s the kind of piece that reminds us that art-making is a dance with materials. In this case, celluloid film, light, and chemicals. The grey scale here is rich, like a Morandi painting, full of subtle nuances. Look at the strip at the bottom, those blurry images might be what some would discard, but they're full of energy. It's like he's saying, "Hey, even the mistakes have something to say." For me, it’s those almost-failed images that make me think about the possibilities of photography, and how it relates to painting. Like the work of Gerhard Richter who blurred paintings to mimic photography, Frank seems to suggest that the decisive moment isn't everything. Sometimes it’s the accidental, the out-of-focus, that tells a more profound story.