Guggenheim 736--Des Moines to Iowa City, Iowa 1956

Editor: So, this is Robert Frank's "Guggenheim 736--Des Moines to Iowa City, Iowa" from 1956, a gelatin silver print. It looks like a photographer's contact sheet with multiple images, and it's making me think about how photographers select their 'decisive moment'. What stories are held in these specific images and what are your first impressions? Curator: I see a layered narrative, almost a cultural tapestry woven from seemingly disparate threads. Notice how Frank juxtaposes images of intimacy with scenes of societal structure. Dancers and couples mix with bureaucratic processes of army officers or even baptism – rituals of both connection and order. The red framing emphasizes some photos. Why these, do you think? Editor: Maybe they represent a narrative he intended to develop further? I hadn't thought of these images as being connected, it felt very scattered and spontaneous, almost like snapshots of everyday life devoid of inherent connections to each other, however, the images framed in red add another layer to the narrative and I'm intrigued about these connections between love, social rituals and bureaucracy... Curator: Precisely! He captures something distinctly American here. It's this tension between the individual and the collective. A dance implies joy, movement, freedom. Military imagery or church may signify restriction, the weight of tradition and cultural memory. How do these opposing images speak to each other? Editor: I guess Frank might be suggesting the search for individual freedom in a culture so structured and determined? I wonder what someone living at that time would make of it compared to what we see today? Curator: An interesting question. It's the beauty of revisiting these visual symbols through time – they accumulate layers of meaning, evolving with cultural shifts and revealing continuity as well. Each time period emphasizes a different facet of the symbolism, while continuing the overall symbolism of love, social life, church and the army Editor: It is fascinating how photography captures everyday symbolism and the red framing adds emphasis to create and manipulate narratives in an otherwise very simple, mundane image.