Guggenheim 724--Omaha, Nebraska 1956

Robert Frank created this film strip, ‘Guggenheim 724--Omaha, Nebraska,’ with gelatin silver print. It's like a storyboard of black and white moments, each frame a little world, some marked with red, maybe where Frank saw something special. The texture is all in the contrasts – the stark blacks and grays creating a mood that’s both gritty and intimate. Look closely, and you can almost hear the clatter of the camera, the click of the shutter. In one frame, a man speaks, his face a landscape of shadow and light, a mark of humanity amidst the rows of images. This reminds me of when I am working on a large composition; I am always reviewing how different components of a painting interact with each other. I like to imagine Frank thinking about what to include and what to exclude as he pieced this together. I wonder about how Robert Adams might have felt looking at this, seeing the world through Frank’s eyes, both of them searching for something real in the American landscape.