Guggenheim 721--Lincoln, Nebraska 1956

Robert Frank made this contact sheet, "Guggenheim 721--Lincoln, Nebraska," by pressing negatives against photographic paper and exposing it to light. It's all about process. Look at the orange marks and circles on the sheet, they are part of the work. Frank's marks are so casual they look like doodles. The whole thing gives me a fly-on-the-wall feeling. It's not about the beauty of the individual image, but about a sort of lived reality, you know? It makes me think about painting because it's raw, like seeing the underpainting of a canvas. It has a similar energy to the work of Cy Twombly, you are left looking at marks and trying to find meaning, you are making the meaning as you look.