Guggenheim 510--General Motors Motorama, Los Angeles 1956

This is Robert Frank’s photographic film strip, Guggenheim 510--General Motors Motorama, Los Angeles, made with film, camera, and darkroom magic. It's a whole series of images, presented together, a bit like a painting with a collage of different frames. I like the way the strip shows you the range of Frank’s eye, the way he's capturing all these different moments at the General Motors Motorama. What was he thinking as he wandered around the Motorama show? Was he planning a sequence, or just pointing and shooting at random? I imagine him circling, feeling out the scene, like a painter mixing colors, trying to get the right tone. I can see the way he's observing American culture here, with its obsessions and promises, especially through the lens of cars. The red marks bring attention to what he may have found important, but also how he wanted us to read the images. It reminds me of my own process with painting, making marks to both bring attention and to obscure. Frank's work reminds us that art is always a conversation.