Guggenheim 359--Houston, Texas 1955

Robert Frank made this piece titled "Guggenheim 359--Houston, Texas" using gelatin silver print. It seems like he pasted strips of film onto a larger sheet of black paper. I can imagine Robert Frank in the darkroom, developing his film, making choices about what to include and what to leave out. I wonder if this work, with its collage-like assemblage, was a way for Frank to break free from the constraints of traditional photography, to push the boundaries of the medium. The contrast between the grainy, documentary-style images and the stark black background is really interesting. The filmstrips give the sense of a narrative, like fragments of a story, a juxtaposition of images, and a rejection of a single, fixed viewpoint. I see this and think of other artists that work with collage.