Exhausted Renegade Elephant, Woodland, Washington, from the series "American Prospects"
<p>Between 1979 and 1983 Joel Sternfeld traveled across the United States, making photographs with a large-format camera mounted on a tripod for a series called <em>American Prospects</em>. His wandering, on-the-road approach to picturing the American landscape coupled a sense of searching with being in the right place at the right time. Here Sternfeld transformed an elephant’s escape from a zoo into an image that reads like a movie still with an elevated vantage point and a wide frame that shows the bystanders and sheriff’s car.</p>
Catalogue
- Year
- 1979
- Medium
- Chromogenic print
- Dimensions
- Image: 40.5 × 50.9 cm (16 × 20 1/16 in.); Paper: 50.7 × 60.9 cm (20 × 24 in.)
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Artist
- Joel Sternfeld
Artist
Photography
Joel Sternfeld is an American photographer known for large-format color photographs of American landscapes and vernacular architecture. Working primarily in the 1970s and 1980s, he employed saturated chromogenic color film to document the texture and typography of built and natural environments across the United States. His deadpan formal approach and precise compositional control transform ordinary suburban and industrial scenes into richly chromatic studies of postwar American spatial culture. Sternfeld's work challenged the documentary photography establishment's then-dominant preference for black-and-white practice.
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More by Joel Sternfeld
Piedmont Biofuels, Pittsboro, North Carolina, from the series "Sweet Earth: Experimental Utopias in America"
2005 · Chromogenic print
Queen of the Prom, the Range Nightclub, Slab City, California, from the series "Sweet Earth: Experimental Utopias in America"
2005 · Chromogenic print
Homecoming Day, Nicodemus, Kansas, from the series "Sweet Earth: Experimental Utopias in America"
2005 · Chromogenic print
Milagro Cohousing, Tucson, Arizona, from the series "Sweet Earth: Experimental Utopias in America"
2005 · Chromogenic print
"Learning" by Jean Charlot, Camp Rockmount, Black Mountain, North Carolina, from the series "Sweet Earth: Experimental Utopias in America"
2005 · Chromogenic print
Liz Christy Garden, Bowery and Houston Streets, New York City, from the series "Sweet Earth: Experimental Utopias in America"
2005 · Chromogenic print
Record
Verified by WattsOS- Artist
- Joel Sternfeld
- Year
- 1979
- Medium
- Chromogenic print
- Dimensions
- Image: 40.5 × 50.9 cm (16 × 20 1/16 in.); Paper: 50.7 × 60.9 cm (20 × 24 in.)
- Watts ID
- WW-1979-097264
Source
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Source
- aic
- Reference
- View at source
- Status
- verified