Guggenheim 430--Los Angeles 1955 - 1956

This is Robert Frank's contact sheet "Guggenheim 430--Los Angeles," created with photography. Look at the way Frank is working here: he’s not precious, he's just shooting, shooting, shooting. He’s trying to capture the feel of the place, and that’s such an exciting thing to see, right? Frank uses the camera as a tool to describe not just what’s in front of him, but also how he feels about what’s in front of him. I like how you can see the marks of the process – the sprocket holes, the frame numbers, the dust, the scratches. It’s like seeing the artist’s hand in the work, even though it’s a photograph. It’s all right there, visible, not obscured. It reminds me of what Moholy-Nagy was doing with photography and painting, always pushing the limits, always questioning what a photograph could be, or what a painting could be. It's a real invitation to embrace art's ambiguities.