Convention 17 1956

Robert Frank created "Convention 17" using photography to capture a moment, or rather, a series of moments. It’s like he’s handing you a roll of film still hot from the darkroom. The composition is a grid of black and white photographs, with little red circles drawn around a handful of the frames. There is something so beautifully casual about the mark-making here - as if the artist wanted to highlight certain moments, but didn’t want to obscure the images themselves. I think of analogue photography as a kind of painting. The darkroom is like a studio, and the chemicals are like paint! Frank makes it easy to see the hand of the artist at work, and the role of chance in image making. Like looking at Cy Twombly's work, there's no right or wrong way to read it. It’s about feeling the moment and letting the work speak to you.