All AmericanThe words “Love me” are painted on a boy’s cheek; his face is otherwise inscrutable... A staircase, lined with ornamental, but empty, picture frames, winds upward to nowhere...On New Year’s Day in Philadelphia, the Mummers take over Broad Street, their faces under the silver, sequins and glitter spelling out the past and foreshadowing the future... A biker dressed in what must be the chains of freedom. Other Americans (and these could only be Americans) act out their inalienable rights in stars and stripes, or Mickey Mouse t-shirts, or hoop skirts, Indian headdress and bikinis. The photographs in this book, as Martha Chahroudi, curator of the exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, writes in her introduction, show a people who “rarely recede, even in their moments of aloneness.” Burk Uzzle’s America is a place where, as he himself describes it, “gaudy becomes transcendental” — the photographer’s subjects may advertise their possessions, yet hide themselves; they look at their history, but can’t find the here and now; the grown-ups believe salute electric meters, wave flags and roller-skate, and the children display a preternatural wisdom. They all live alone, but also in families among crowds, amid generosity and despair, and if there’s a unifying thread to America, the photographer has captured it: America is exuberance and hope, against add odds. The project of ten years of looking at, and looking for, America, ALL AMERICAN is the work of one of our finest photographers. — Publisher description. |
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