American Beauty examines the twin obsessions of American photography: the belief in the possibility of showing the 'truth' through the photograph - often in order to effect social change - and the fascination with the depiction of pure form. By the 1930s, after decades of external influences, American photography had forged its own unique mode through the work of Edward Weston, Walker Evans, Alfred Stieglitz and with the rise of the great picture magazines.
Photographers such as Weegee, through their hit and run approach to photographing both the high and the low, along with the spread of Hollywood style and advertising photography, presented to the world at large both the glamour and the tragedy of modern American life. The increasing diversification of photographic styles in recent decades has brought the work of Nan Goldin as much as Robert Mapplethorpe to prominence - the former with her celebration of New York subcultures and the latter through his apotheosis of pure form. |
