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Peripheral Views: States of America

July 13—September 30, 2012

Martin Hyers & William Mebane, from their Empire series

Michael Mergen, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Richmond, CA, 2008

Doug Rickard, #82.948842, Detroit, MI. 2009

Featuring works by:
Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin
Veronica Corzo-Duchardt
Nicolas Krebs & Taiyo Onorato
Liz Magic Laser
Object Orange
Harry Shearer
Martin Hyers & William Mebane
Michael Mergen
Doug Rickard

As we debate our country’s economic and political course this election year, Peripheral Views: States of America brings together artists grappling with the difficulty of picturing America in our time. Authoritative images and grand narratives take a backseat to malleable viewpoints in this exhibition, with each artist using photography as a means to take measure of our bearings and locate certain markers—past, present, and future—of the American Dream. Through taking diverse and fragmented images of America as our bearings, is it possible to create a larger view of the state of our nation? Through closely focusing on the everyday objects, places, and images of our present and immediate past, is it possible to reveal the latent hopes and desires for an America full of opportunity buried within them?

Like the curatorial team of this exhibition, many of the artworks were created collaboratively. The multiplicity of creators and imagery reflect that the contemporary American experience is larger than any single person or community. While photographs have the power to influence social and political change, traditional documentary practice seems unable to capture the turbulent spirit of a nation in the midst of divisive politics and economic recession. The work in this exhibition underscores the cultural and economic divides and the anxieties that have come to dominate American politics, commerce, and home life. Some of the artists approach issues of class, race, power, and social justice indirectly—as many of us do—by utilizing information from influential institutions like Google, television, advertising and government. Other artists reflect a sense of nostalgia unique to our time, where our current anxieties coexist with a longing for a past ideal of the American Dream. As the artists try—and sometimes fail—to bring forward a clearer understanding of the United States today, their photographs operate as synecdoche, or fragments attempting to represent the whole, while recognizing the ultimate impossibility of creating an encompassing new picture of America.