Over a period of fifteen years Joel Sternfeld travelled across America and took portrait photographs that form in Douglas R. Nickel’s words an “intelligent, unscientific, interpretive sampling of what Americans looked like at the century’s end.” Unlike historical portraits which represent significant people in staged surroundings, Sternfeld’s subjects are uncannily “normal”: a banker having an evening meal, a teenager collecting shopping carts in a parking lot, a homeless man holding his bedding.

Using August Sander’s classic photograph of three peasants on their way to a dance as a starting point, Sternfeld employed a conceptual strategy that amounts to a new theory of the portrait, which might be termed “The Circumstantial Portrait”.

What happens when we encounter the other in the mist of a circumstance? What presumptions, if any, are valid? What, if anything, can be known of the other from a photographic portrait?


132 pages

Book / Clothbound
34 x 29 cm

English

ISBN 978-3-86930-499-1
1. Edition 08/2012

Out of print

€ 65.00 incl. VAT
Free shipping

Cookie Settings

We use cookies to improve your experience and to provide you with personalized content. By using this website you agree to our cookie policy

Necessary Cookies
Statistical Cookies
Third-party Cookies
Accept Change Settings
steidl.de

Cookie Settings

More information on how we use cookies in our cookie policy.

­

Necessary Cookies

Without these Cookies services you have asked for cannot be provided.

Statistical Cookies

Allow anonymous usage statistics so that we can improve our offering.

Third-party Cookies

Third-party cookies that are integrated to deliver personalized ads for you.

Cookies We use on This Site