Buildings and church spire--Baton Rouge, Louisiana 1955

Editor: This is "Buildings and church spire--Baton Rouge, Louisiana" by Robert Frank, a gelatin-silver print from 1955. The composition, all these buildings jammed together, feels... claustrophobic almost. What draws your eye when you look at it? Curator: Immediately, the rough materiality. Look at the different brick textures, the varying states of decay. This speaks volumes about the urban landscape, about labor, construction, and ultimately, consumption and abandonment. Editor: Consumption? Abandonment? I'm not sure I follow. Curator: Think about it. Bricks are produced, buildings erected, representing capital investment, human labor. Then time, use, or economic shifts lead to deterioration, obsolescence. We're seeing the lifecycle of construction itself in this one frame. Editor: So, the photo's less about Baton Rouge, and more about… the economic processes it embodies? What about the church spire? Curator: Ah, the spire. Juxtapose it against the utilitarian brick. The spire, meant to soar, reduced to a small element hemmed in by the built environment. A critique, perhaps, on the Church’s diminishing role amidst industrial expansion, using only available construction and its aesthetics. Editor: Interesting. I was focused on the composition, but now I see the materials telling a much bigger story about society and how it functions. Curator: Exactly! And Frank’s choice of the gelatin-silver print, a mass-reproducible medium itself, reinforces this idea of accessibility, democratizing the visual record of these processes. Editor: That makes me think about who gets to build, who profits, and who's left behind to live in decaying spaces. Thanks, that shifted my perspective a lot. Curator: My pleasure. Looking at the built world through the lens of its creation and consumption provides a powerful critique, doesn’t it?