Seagull Monument--Salt Lake City, Utah 1956

Robert Frank made this gelatin silver print, "Seagull Monument--Salt Lake City, Utah," at an unknown date. It's a black and white photograph, with an odd softness to it, which makes the monument seem almost dreamlike. I like to imagine Frank wandering around Salt Lake City, camera in hand, always looking, waiting, and watching. He's probably thinking about the history of the place, the seagulls which saved the Mormon pioneers’ crops from the crickets, the monument itself--trying to capture the real and the symbolic all at once. The people gathered in the background give me the sense of a community coming together, maybe for a dedication, or a memorial? The photograph flattens the scene, so the monument and the crowd feel like part of the same plane. Robert Frank’s photograph reminds me that art isn’t just about showing things how they are, but about finding a way to show how they *feel*. The print is both a record of a place and time, and something much more subjective, a bit like life itself.