Guggenheim 643--Chinese cemetery, San Francisco c. 1956

Robert Frank's 'Guggenheim 643--Chinese cemetery, San Francisco' is a photographic contact sheet, a behind-the-scenes peek into his artistic process. You see these little rectangles, all these different views of a place, and it's like Frank is feeling his way through the world, one frame at a time. The texture is grainy, raw, and unpolished – it’s the real deal. The darkroom marks are all there, and the red grease pencil circles some frames – probably the ones he thought were worth a closer look. The physicality of the medium is so present! This isn’t trying to be slick or perfect. The whole thing feels like a meditation on seeing, on trying to capture something elusive. It reminds me of Cy Twombly's photographs of his studio. Both artists let us see the mess, the trying, the vulnerability of making. It's like they're saying, "Here's the world, here's how I see it, in all its messy, imperfect glory."