Guggenheim 437--Los Angeles 1955 - 1956

Editor: Okay, next up we have Robert Frank's "Guggenheim 437—Los Angeles," taken between 1955 and 1956, a gelatin silver print showing strips of film. It feels...fragmented, like glimpses of a bigger, lost story. What do you make of this contact sheet approach? Curator: Lost stories... precisely! For me, this piece is about Frank's personal journey, like a visual diary made public. I can almost feel his excitement – a frantic energy capturing the essence of 1950s Los Angeles, as it was experienced, not simply viewed. Look how he breaks the traditional idea of the perfect shot. Instead, he shows us the outtakes, the almost-misses, the bits in-between. Editor: It’s definitely not polished! Almost messy, even. The scribbles, the visible film edges... Were audiences used to this style at the time? Curator: Good question. No, they were not! That's partly what made Frank so revolutionary. Think about the context. Post-war America, burgeoning consumerism... he's not offering shiny, happy images. There's an unease, a stark realism here, especially when considering Frank’s background as an immigrant to the United States from Switzerland, that feels deliberate and compelling. It asks us to question the glossy picture everyone was selling at the time, and what we remember from then. Editor: I get it! So the rawness is the point. It’s like a visual challenge to the ideal. Curator: Exactly! It invites us to find our own narrative in those fragmented frames and question established visions. What have you taken away from observing and contemplating this image? Editor: I’d say to accept a creative method as a finished piece of artwork can bring another, new layer of questions on perspective, culture and story-telling. And also that ‘perfect’ can sometimes be boring!