Staten Island no number 4 - 1962

Curator: Okay, here we have Robert Frank’s "Staten Island no number," taken in April 1962. It’s a gelatin silver print presented as a contact sheet – all the frames visible together. What’s your first impression? Editor: Grainy, raw...it feels like looking at someone's memories developing right before my eyes, with the imperfections included. Like holding a strip of captured moments rather than viewing a singular perfected image. Curator: Exactly! It moves away from that pristine, carefully composed shot. It is a radical departure from classical photojournalism, and that’s the power of his ‘snapshot aesthetic.’ The American flag recurs throughout these frames. What does that signify to you in this context? Editor: Well, seeing it juxtaposed with everyday, almost banal scenes of ordinary people…there’s an undercurrent of something more. A question about the promise of the flag perhaps, its symbolism against the reality of daily life, of a melancholic open field. Curator: The openness of the field resonates strongly with Frank’s perspective on America, as does the repetition of that flag. Editor: And consider that the contact sheet itself becomes part of the statement. He doesn’t select one ‘perfect’ frame; he shows the process, the searching, the unedited truth as he perceived it. The reversed images feel particularly poignant. Are we seeing the country inverted in some way? Curator: That’s astute! Reversal can imply looking at something in the mirror, almost to recognize and evaluate. And it creates an unease... Editor: Ultimately it is up to the viewer to resolve, or not. This one little 'diary' reminds us how powerful everyday iconography and its surrounding symbols are when juxtaposed. It creates questions where there were once declarative statements. Curator: Precisely. It encapsulates Frank’s willingness to disrupt the conventional, and leave things open to interpretation. Editor: It encourages me to really consider what it is to examine my own personal symbolic relationship with the culture I experience. A small photo that sparks large, resonant ideas.