Guggenheim 162--Inauguration, Washington, D.C. 1957

Curator: Today, we're looking at Robert Frank's "Guggenheim 162--Inauguration, Washington, D.C.," a gelatin silver print from 1957. It's a contact sheet, showcasing a series of images. Editor: My first thought is one of disorientation. So many tiny worlds vying for my attention! It's like looking through someone else’s chaotic memory bank. Curator: Exactly. Frank's work often challenges traditional photographic practices. Contact sheets weren't usually presented as finished pieces. Displaying the raw, unedited frames disrupts notions of the decisive moment so valued by photographers. Editor: There’s something deeply vulnerable about showing all the outtakes. It exposes the photographer’s process, the misses, the experiments, which are often hidden. He is essentially offering a counter-narrative to the slick, packaged image we are used to consuming. It screams honesty to me. Curator: Precisely. Frank aimed to capture a more raw, unvarnished version of America. The repetition of subjects across the frames suggests a search, a struggle to distill a complex reality. Inaugurations are staged events but there are frames of bystanders looking like shadows on the background, so this captures America as a staged reality as well. Editor: I’m drawn to how some of these little scenes mirror each other. There's the repetition of American flags juxtaposed to crowds or people; I wonder if Frank aimed to point towards the concept of shared experience but somehow also isolating, within a patriotic backdrop? Curator: Absolutely, that's key. He presents the inauguration not as a unified celebration, but as a fragmented collection of individual encounters. Editor: Knowing the social and political landscape of 1957 America, this feels quite subversive. I wonder if viewers understood what he aimed at at the time. Curator: Many found it cynical. His work didn't neatly align with dominant narratives of post-war prosperity and optimism. It was critical, highlighting inequality and a sense of unease. Editor: So much revealed in those imperfect squares, so many imperfect people and views depicted by this one sheet! Curator: Indeed. A single sheet that encapsulates both an important era for the nation but also one artist's reflection of an image he seemed eager to unveil.