Guggenheim 615--Westlake and San Francisco c. 1956

Robert Frank made this series of images of Westlake and San Francisco, probably with a Leica, during his Guggenheim Fellowship. What strikes me immediately is that Frank is dealing with the physical material of the film itself: we see the sprocket holes, the edges of the frames, and even red grease pencil marks. The images themselves have a casual and grainy quality, and there’s nothing slick or particularly composed about them. The subjects are presented without judgment or adornment. In one section, there is an image of a man wearing what looks like a mask. In another frame, a skyline. Together, the combination creates an edgy, raw, and unsentimental portrait of a place. The film strip format reminds me of Gerhard Richter's series "October 18, 1977," which also deals with images that have a documentary quality and an open-ended narrative. Both Frank and Richter point to artmaking as an ongoing conversation. These images are neither fixed nor definitive, and perhaps that’s the point.