Paris 70B 1951 - 1952

Robert Frank made this, Paris 70B, a black and white photograph with blue marker pen at some point. I just love the way it looks. It’s like a bunch of film strips slapped on a dark background. You can see the artist’s hand in it, the blue marks and the big number 70 scrawled in the corner – he was definitely thinking hard. Was he trying to edit? Was he picking the best shots, or killing off the bad ones? I wonder what he was going for. It reminds me of Cy Twombly’s messy energy or even some of the collages Rauschenberg did. It feels like all these artists are in this big conversation. I always think that art-making, whether it's photography or painting, is all about embracing the unexpected, leaving room for different ways of seeing and feeling. You just keep going.