Robert Kennedy--Convention 5 1956

Robert Frank's ‘Robert Kennedy--Convention 5’ is a gelatin silver print, an intimate document showing a strip of images, contact sheet style. I can imagine Frank in the thick of things at the convention, his camera an extension of his eye, trying to grab a piece of the reality unfolding before him. You can feel the urgency, the press of bodies. He’s trying to capture the zeitgeist of a generation teetering on the edge of change. In one frame, Kennedy is circled, maybe a note to himself, a moment he wanted to remember. These frames, though small, pulse with something that connects to the work of other photographers like Garry Winogrand, who also had an eye for the chaotic beauty of life. Frank seems to be saying something about the role of the artist as a witness, capturing these fleeting moments, offering them up for us to ponder. It's a reminder that artists are in conversation, always building on what came before, speaking to each other across time.