Paris 25 1959

Robert Frank made this work, Paris 25, using photography, and it feels very much like a sketch. He’s laid bare the raw materials, the film strips, the basic units of the medium, and that brings us closer to the process. The texture is grainy, immediate. What strikes me is the overall composition, how the strips are arranged on the page, slightly tilted, overlapping. You can see the sprocket holes of the film. These act almost like brushstrokes, mapping out the surface and creating a rhythm across the work. Look at the bottom strip, the way the figures are cropped, heads bowed, maybe in prayer or contemplation. There is a strong contrast between light and dark, but everything feels somehow unresolved and ambiguous. Like Gober, Frank invites us to find our own way through fragments of a larger narrative, reminding us that art is about asking questions, not providing answers.