Bøger af Lee Friedlander

A superbly assembled survey of Friedlander's abiding fascination with the American social landscape across six decadesThis volume presents 155 photographs spanning 60 years of the artist's exploration of the built environment in the American social landscape. Collectively these photographs add to one of the broadest and most nuanced visual explorations of America, and, individually, they are filled with the kind of intellectual humor and observation for which Friedlander has become celebrated. Along the way, of course, Friedlander has expanded our ideas of what constitutes real estate, just as he continues to compel us to reconsider how photography reveals essential aspects of our lives over time. The mirror that Lee Friedlander holds up to us is his mirror and everything reflected in it has the common traits of his way of seeing-each picture is definitively a Friedlander picture. Real Estate is an essential collection of one of Friedlander's lifelong subjects, and takes its place alongside other classic titles of his quest to photograph the ever-changing social landscape: The People's Pictures (2021), Signs (2019), The American Monument (1976/2017), Letters from the People (1993) and American Musicians (2001).

Known for his unorthodox self-portraits, Lee Friedlander has given us another collection, but this time only in shadow, with The Shadow Knows, a reference to the 1930’s radio show that ended with the line: “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow Knows.” Sometimes Friedlander's shadow is presented as ominous — imposed over another person, sometimes his wife — lending the impression of sneakiness, desire, or possession. Other times it's playful, draped over a cactus or a pile of rocks, turning the photographer into a cartoon character with exaggerated body parts. And sometimes he simply makes himself part of a scene, often where you can make out the camera held up to his eye — the photographer’s version of breaking the fourth wall. One thing is clear throughout the book: his shadow is treated as an honored guest, and Friedlander takes full advantage of the company, tirelessly finding ways of adapting it to his own drama. Historian and curator Rod Slemmons once wrote that Friedlander “provides us with a new visual world in which obstruction, confusion, and accident are the driving forces” — a statement never more evident than in this book.   Friedlander, you imagine, has discovered not just the evil and not just in the hearts of men, but something more profound in his own, and in these 101 photographs shows us what it has come to know.

In this compendium, Lee Friedlander examines the ordinary pickup truck, a quintessentially American mode of transportation. Unadorned in form as well as function, pickups have long been the vehicle of choice for farmers and tradespeople. Their well-worn beds-usually open to the elements, laid bare for all to see-have held and hauled all manner of things, from spare tires and jumbles of wires to animals and the occasional person. Friedlander, in his witty and encompassing, clear-eyed idiom, has observed this most utilitarian and unapologetically personal object in its native setting: the cacophonous bricolage that is American social landscape.

In the capstone volume of his epic series "The Human Clay," Lee Friedlander has created an ode to people who work. Drawn from his incomparable archive are photographs of individuals laboring on the street and on stage, as well as in the field, in factories and in fluorescent-lit offices. Performers, salespeople and athletes alike are observed both in action and at rest by Friedlander's uncanny eye. Opera singers are caught mid-aria, models primp backstage, mechanics tinker and telemarketers hustle. Spanning six decades, this humanizing compilation features over 250 photographs, many appearing here for the first time in print.