Paris 52A 1949 - 1950

Robert Frank's 'Paris 52A' is, I guess, a kind of sketchbook page made with photography. What you get is not a single perfect image, but a whole matrix of possible shots. Look at the way the film is presented, complete with sprocket holes and handwritten numbers. It's like a contact sheet, raw and unedited. Each frame offers a different angle, a different focus, a different moment in time. It reminds me of the way painters used to work on a canvas, trying out different compositions, different color combinations, before settling on the final image. For me, the real beauty of this work lies in its honesty. It's not trying to be slick or perfect. It's just showing you the process of seeing, the way the eye moves and the mind edits. It’s very close to the spirit of what painters like Gerhard Richter or even Cy Twombly were exploring around the same time, this sense of art as a fluid and open-ended process.