Guggenheim 482--Twentieth Century Fox film studio, Burbank, California 1956

Robert Frank’s photographic contact sheet of the Twentieth Century Fox film studio presents us with a modern-day labyrinth. Note how the film strip, a container of images, echoes the labyrinthine corridors of the studio itself. The sparse rooms in several frames hold only actors or technicians; these figures appear lost in the vastness, like Theseus in the mythical maze. Consider how the film studio, a place of manufactured dreams, becomes a symbol of our collective unconscious. Just as the Minotaur lurked in the heart of the labyrinth, so too do hidden desires and anxieties dwell within the machinery of Hollywood. We see this mirrored later in other creative industries. The cyclical nature of this symbol, the labyrinth, persists: from ancient Crete to modern-day Burbank, the journey through darkness to find light remains an eternal human quest.