Guggenheim 664/Americans 81--Reno, Nevada 1956

This is a contact sheet from Robert Frank's series, *The Americans*. The artist, working in Nevada, has produced an image of images. A matrix of possible worlds. A sequence of events or possible outcomes. I can imagine Frank in the darkroom, holding the film, the negative strip, up to the light, thinking about which images to choose, which to discard. Each frame is a record of a moment, a fragment of reality captured by the lens. The darkroom feels so pregnant with possibility! The artist, like a painter, is composing a picture from all these little bits and pieces. Thinking about tempo, what to keep and what to throw away. We, the viewers, are invited to consider the story that emerges from the arrangement of these frames. What is highlighted? What is relegated to the periphery? It's like he is asking us to think about the choices inherent in image-making, and how those choices shape our understanding of the world. The red framing speaks to the potential and importance of each of these moments.