On This Site

Words are not needed in this great photo essay in life of violence and tragedy in America. Ordinary places, amazing events. The corner where MADD's founded was killed by a drunk driver, Love Canal, Imperial Food Fire, the former Store where Emmett Tills whistled at a white woman and was brutally killed, Polly Klass, Magan Kanka, Yummy Sandifer, Waco, OK Fed Building. All memories that rose anew when I read the book. It sits on my desk at work as reminder that we should never forget these tragic events.

Joel Sternfeld's work as a conceptual photographer exhibits a degree of understanding of emptiness, of unspoken gaps, of silence. He is taking the pictures of the places where famous tragic events in America were taking place, some years after the fact. The photographs are creating a very strong sense of the "negative event" space, where something which is not told is infinitely more important that what was told. Also I highly recommend Joel Sternfeld 's most recent exhibition catalog "Stranger Passing", where he travels the roads of America, and takes pictures with his large-format camera. Although all his pictures include people in various situations (attending a party, selling coffee, hanging out in their own homes, vacationing, promenading, relaxing, observing, working), what he is really interested in, is the depiction of landscapes and soft outplay of the mid-afternoon light.

This book is both beautiful and moving Sternfeld takes you to the sites of some of humanity's worst moments, and presents them literally in a new light. You might even learn some history.