Guggenheim 747/Americans 70--Indianapolis 1956

Robert Frank shot this strip of photographs called Guggenheim 747/Americans 70--Indianapolis, at an unknown date. In this piece, like many others, his process feels so immediate, so visceral. The materiality of the film strip is really interesting. The deep blacks and grainy silvers give each frame a kind of weight, a density. You can almost feel the artist there, watching the world go by and trying to grab little pieces of it. The marks are blurry, and rough; the scenes of people lounging, pushing carts and walking, are cropped in unexpected ways. Look at the frame on the bottom left, the one in portrait orientation; a man, possibly the photographer, looks back at the camera in the mirror. His face is obscured, but we get a sense of his presence, his gaze, his searching. It reminds me a bit of Garry Winogrand, another street photographer who found beauty in the everyday chaos of American life. It's like he's saying, "I'm here, I'm looking, and I'm just as lost as you are." It's a powerful, ambiguous statement that resonates with the whole of Frank’s oeuvre.