Guggenheim 694--Butte, Montana 1956

Robert Frank's 'Guggenheim 694--Butte, Montana' is a small, black and white photographic contact sheet, full of many little pictures. I think of it like a painter's palette, each image a daub of potential, a little moment that maybe could become something bigger. I feel for Frank here, trying to pin down the world, one frame at a time. He’s driving around, stopping, starting, shooting, trying to work out what to hold onto. A face, a building, a landscape. What might have been on his mind? The light, the road, America. Like all artists he is caught between control and letting go, between the surface and the depths. There's a constant conversation happening between artists across time. When I look at Frank's work, I think about Walker Evans, I think about the painter Edward Hopper, all trying to capture something elusive and real about America. Painting, photography – they offer us different ways of seeing, of feeling our way through the world. Neither offers a fixed point of view, just a continuous process of looking and learning.