Guggenheim 425--Los Angeles 1955 - 1956

Here is the audio guide script about Robert Frank's 'Guggenheim 425--Los Angeles', created with gelatin silver print. This photographic film strip, probably captured sometime in the mid-20th century, is really like a series of abstract gestures. As a painter, I think about what Robert Frank must have been thinking while constructing these images, piecing them together, and making these images speak to each other. Each frame is a kind of brushstroke, layered with meaning and emotion, like a series of different worlds. I imagine the darkroom as his studio, each print a chance to start again. The composition is amazing, with the texture of the film itself acting as a kind of a unifying surface, and the black and white tones give these fragmented moments a sense of continuity. I think of artists like Gerhard Richter who also blurred the boundaries between photography and painting. It’s like Robert Frank is asking us to slow down and embrace the uncertain and ambiguous. Photography, painting—it’s all just an exchange of ideas across time.