Butcher's stall, Paris 1951

This photograph, "Butcher's Stall, Paris," was taken by Robert Frank, and it's a small gelatin silver print. The way Frank’s used light here – that glare, almost like a stain, right at the center – makes everything look provisional, as if it might all disappear in a moment. The photograph is so grainy, it’s almost dissolving. This butcher shop feels like it’s barely holding on. I'm drawn to the menu board, though, with its looping, handwritten script. All those prices and cuts of meat listed one after another! It gives a real sense of place, of the everyday rhythms of life in this neighborhood. It reminds me of Eugène Atget, who documented the vanishing trades of Paris at the turn of the last century. Both artists capture a certain poignancy, a sense of time slipping away. Art is like that: a conversation across generations, a way of seeing the world anew.