Reframing America: Alexander Alland, Otto Hagel & Hansel Mieth, John Gutmann, Lisette Model, Marion Palfi, Robert Frank [ILLUSTRATED] (Paperback)

~ (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This three-volume series is published in conjunction with photographic exhibitions documenting the impact of immigration on American culture. Over the course of four years three nonprofit photography institutes collaborated to gather over 400 photographic images by 88 artists, a project involving hundreds of loan arrangements. The exhibitions are currently circulating among the three organizing museums and then will tour the nation through 1997. The hopes, fears, conflicts, and complexities of the immigrant experience in America?so dramatically revealed by the camera?distinguish this series. Reframing America showcases the works of seven European emigre photographers, from 1923 to 1947, whose innovative artistic techniques captured America's social unrest and racism combined with a passion for materialism and glamor. The work opens with a bittersweet memoir by noted writer Andrei Codrescu recalling his experience emigrating from Romania in 1966. In his introductory essay to Tracing Cultures, San Francisco's Friends of Photography Director Andy Grundberg states that this is "an exhibition of recent work by artists who employ photography to address issues of cross-cultural adjustment, displacement, and loss from the perspective of their own lives." Cultural conflicts between one's country of origin and this nation are strikingly expressed through photographs and photo-based installation art by 12 contemporary photographers. Two essayists explore the issues of multiculturalism, assimilation, and America's identity as a nonwhite society. A Nation of Strangers provides a historic overview of the past 155 years of U.S. immigration using photographs, cartoons, broadsides, and detailed annotations. Chinese miners during the California gold rush, Chinese laborers building the Central Pacific Railroad, patrols at the Mexican border, multitudes of new arrivals at Ellis and Angel islands, Cuban rafters, and Haitian refugees are portrayed, as well as the labor riots, poverty, and social upheavals that attended the various migrations. An excellent bibliography of English-language books published since 1983, a brief chronology, and two essays complete the volume. The three-part series has widespread appeal and is strongly recommended for general public library collections and all collections with a focus on photography or immigration.?Joan Levin, MLS, Chicago
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description

Fleeing fascism, war, and persecution, numerous European artists and photographers came to the United States during the mass emigrations of the 1930s and 1940s. These émigrés brought with them a variety of artistic traditions and different perspectives on issues such as class, politics, and race, which dramatically affected American photography from the 1930s and the 1960s.

Reframing America explores the artistic and social visions of seven European émigré photographers who helped shape a new photography and a startling new vision of this country: Alexander Alland, Robert Frank, John Gutmann, Otto Hagel, Hansel Mieth, Lisette Model, and Marion Palfi. Among them, they depicted an America that was more complex and diverse and more deeply troubled than photography had ever shown before.

With remarkable power and insight, their imagery engaged some of the quintessential American themes of the era: the emerging cult of the automobile, Hollywood's glamorous and fictional America, the culture of jazz, and capitalism's blaring commercialism. Their accomplishments foreshadowed and influenced the work of such figures as William Klein, Diane Arbus, Bruce Davidson, and W. Eugene Smith. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press; illustrated edition edition (October 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0826317693
• ISBN-13: 978-0826317698
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 9.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
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• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,220,839 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)