Hollywood 84 1958

In this filmstrip, Robert Frank uses his camera to capture the city of dreams, sometime in 1984. I can imagine the darkroom, the smell of chemicals, the anticipation as the image slowly emerges. In each frame, a moment is captured, a story hinted at. They are like individual brushstrokes that together create a portrait of a place. A face in a car, a crowd, a palm tree, and what looks like a gallery space, all flattened and compressed together on the same surface. The light and shadow play off each other, creating a rhythm that moves my eye across the frame. It's like Frank is saying, 'Here, look at this. Look at how these fragments fit together, or don't.' And in that looking, we find not a definitive statement, but a question. I always think each artist adds their voice to an ongoing conversation about what seeing, and representation, and image-making can be.