Paris 83B 1951 - 1952

Robert Frank made this gelatin silver print, Paris 83B, sometime during his life (1924-2019). It’s a contact sheet of small black and white images. Frank is known for his ability to capture the grit and the poetry of everyday life and I see that here. The surface has a cool tonality that lends a nostalgic feel, like flipping through old memories. What catches my eye is the handwritten "83" scrawled in blue ink. This small detail feels deeply personal, like a peek into the artist's working process. It reminds me that behind every finished piece, there's a messy, human process of selection and arrangement. Looking at the whole sheet, the fragmented nature of this work makes me think of Gerhard Richter’s "Atlas," a collection of photographs and clippings that served as source material for his paintings. Both artists use photography to explore the relationship between representation and reality, inviting us to consider how images shape our understanding of the world. It feels like an invitation to see the world through his eyes, one frame at a time, incomplete and open to interpretation.