Andrea as infant III 1954

This is Robert Frank's 'Andrea as infant III', a contact sheet of black and white photographs. Seeing all of these little frames together gives us the feeling of process, of Frank trying to find the right shot. There's a kind of accidental beauty in these test strips, like the artist is thinking out loud. The starkness of the black and white focuses our attention on the subject, in this case a baby, but also on the formal qualities of the image itself. I see the way Frank uses light and shadow, creating deep contrasts that give the image a kind of raw, unfiltered feel. These contact sheets remind me of the work of artists like Gerhard Richter who blurred the lines between photography and painting, using the camera as a tool for experimentation. Like Richter, Frank's work invites us to embrace ambiguity and multiple interpretations.