Guggenheim 62/Detroit 16 1955

Robert Frank made this photowork, Guggenheim 62/Detroit 16, as a study sheet of different images, it’s hard to know exactly when. It looks like a set of experiments, a set of different scenes and images of figures, presented as a collection. I love seeing into a working process like this. The contact sheet isn't trying to conceal anything; it’s transparent about how it’s been made. You can see some of the frames have been marked or circled. Maybe they interested Frank more than others. Your eye is immediately drawn to them. I find my eye dancing all over this surface, taking in the grit, the grain, the contrasts of light and shadow. Each image is a little world of its own. They remind me a bit of Gerhard Richter's "Atlas" project, a collection of photographs that were source material for his paintings. In both cases, you get this sense of an artist gathering material, piecing together a vision, allowing the possibilities to unfold in front of them. It reminds you that art isn't about making something perfect or resolved but about embracing the messiness and ambiguity of the world.