Guggenheim 610--Westlake and San Francisco c. 1956

Robert Frank created this black and white photograph called Guggenheim 610--Westlake and San Francisco, and I see a long strip of negatives. It is like a storyboard, a behind-the-scenes look at his process. I can imagine Robert Frank with his camera, walking around, observing, feeling, thinking about life in the US and his role as an outsider. What was it like for him, I wonder, as a Swiss immigrant traveling around America? What was he trying to capture? There is a lot of trial and error; he is getting to know a place and filtering through an image, zeroing in on something to show us. It is an editing process, and the red marks show us what he thought was good, what was worth keeping. This feels raw and unrehearsed, and that is what is great about it. Like a painter, Frank is always in conversation with other artists, present and past, figuring out what he wants to say and how he wants to say it. It is a search.