Paris 92B 1951 - 1952

This is Robert Frank's 'Paris 92B,' a small contact sheet, probably from the 1950s. It's so great because it makes the hidden visible—the archive, the selection process, the outtakes. It's so intimate, right? I imagine Frank in his darkroom, hunched over, like a painter at an easel, editing, cropping, ordering, trying to find the gems, the keepers. I'm drawn to the images of people at windows. I always wonder, what's outside? What are they looking at? What are they thinking? And I notice the accidental marks, the blue grease pencil on the film strip—evidence of Frank’s own hand, his decisions, his edits. It reminds me of Cy Twombly's markings on his paintings. It’s like we're seeing the artist's brain at work. A conversation across time, between artists, finding inspiration in the everyday, the accidental, the fleeting moments of life.