1. Do Want.
Eugene Richards
The Blue Room
Dropping from Phaidon in December, yo. Amazon says:
This new body of work, entitled The Blue Room, is one ofRichards’ most personal works to date. It his is first-ever colorproject, and it brings together the overarching themes of all his work”the transient nature of things” in a beautiful and moving series ofpictures of the landscape and abandoned houses of the American West,covering the states of Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Arkansas,Nebraska, New Mexico, and the Dakotas. This is the area where settlerscame around the turn of the twentieth century, pursuing the promise ofhomesteads where they could build successful communities. However, inthe wake of the Great Depression and the dust storms of the 1930s, thefarms in this isolated, semi-arid region faltered and failed, leavingthe land littered with forgotten homes.
2. Don’t want.
Juergen Teller: Marc Jacobs 1997-2008
Dropping momentarily from Steidl. Amazon appears to have no comment.
Looking forward to see how he approached this subject matter. It’s just too easy to just take photographs outside in the landscape or photograph peeling paint.
When I lived in Wyoming, we often wandered into these houses. There are lots of them still around and not only residential buildings.
Usually the houses are still owned by a family and on private property, given that it’s not unusual to own hundreds or thousands of arcres.
It is just cheaper to let them sit there and eventually disintegrate, then to tear them down. The space is not needed or as valuable as on the coasts, so there is no incentive to do anything about it. Just think of the way people just leave their old and broken vehicles sitting somewhere in the landscape or on their property, same goes for old farming equipment.
The dry climate preserves everything. I once found hundreds of canceled checks and other paperwork from 1903 in a farm house in western Nebraska, usually it’s just utensils and furniture. You just stand there wondering who lived there, what it was like, it’s very amazing.
The tragic side of the story is that some of these decaying houses are being used as housing for illegal migrant workers by local farmers – and the farmers don’t like it when people enter into these houses, abandoned or not. More than once someone show up with a shotgun in their hands, asking what we were doing and to leave the property.
Unfortunately I did not think about photographing anything back then, the country and lifestyle was just too new and overwhelming to me, I immersed in the lifestyle instead of documenting it.
One of those things that one wishes to be able to relive and do differently the next time around, if there is such a thing as a second chance.
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