America by Car: Limited Edition

by Lee Friedlander (Photographer)

Enduring icons of American culture, the car and the highway remain vital as auguries of adventure and discovery, and a means by which to take in the country's vast scale. Lee Friedlander is the first photographer to make the car an actual "form" for making photographs. Driving across most of the country's 50 states in an ordinary rental car, Friedlander applied the brilliantly simple conceit of deploying the sideview mirror, rearview mirror, the windshield and the side windows as a picture frame within which to record the country's eccentricities and obsessions at the turn of the century. This method allows for fascinating effects in foreshortening, and wonderfully telling juxtapositions in which steering wheels, dashboards and leatherette bump up against roadside bars, motels, churches, monuments, suspension bridges, landscapes and often Friedlander's own image, via sideview mirror shots. Presented in the square crop format that has dominated his look in recent series, and taken over the past decade, the nearly 200 images in America by Car are easily among Friedlander's finest, full of virtuoso touch and clarity, while also revisiting themes from older bodies of work (Friedlander occasionally used aspects of automotive architecture in photographs from the late 1960s and early 1970s). Never has America been photographed so penetratingly and ingeniously as in Friedlander's latest body of work. This edition of America by Car is limited to 1000 copies and is signed by Friedlander.

Genres: Photography, Art, Travel, Art and Photography

200 pages, Hardcover

First published May 31, 2010

About the author

Lee Friedlander is a seminal American photographer known for his innovative images of city streets. Often featuring candid portraits of people, signs, and reflections of himself in store front windows, Friedlander’s street photography captures the unexpected overlaps of light and content in urban landscapes. “I’m not a premeditative photographer,” he has said. “You don’t have to go looking for pictures. The material is generous. You go out and the pictures are staring at you.”

Born on July 14, 1934 in Aberdeen, WA, he studied at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena before moving to New York in 1956. Influenced by the work of Eugène Atget and Walker Evans, he attempted to see things as if a step removed, spontaneously reacting to all the potential images in front of him. Along with Diane Arbus and Garry Winogrand, Friedlander was represented in the historic “New Documents” exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art in 1967, curated by John Szarkowski. He went on to publish his acclaimed photobook The American Monument in 1976. More recently, in 2010, Friedlander published America by Car, a book which was accompanied by an exhibition at the Whitney Museum and featured a series of photos that were taken on road trips from behind the wheel of rental cars. The artist continues to live and work in New York, NY. Today, his photographs are held in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, among others.

Reviews

[Javier Mariscal Ariza]

Este libro es un viaje en primera persona, gracias a un plano subjetivo que nos invita a conducir a nosotros el automóvil. Cada paso de página es un divertimento y relaciona dos fotografías de formas muy diversas, a través de un concienzudo trabajo de selección de cientos de emparejamientos, cuyo juego narrativo es apasionante: una tensión en las líneas y las formas, una repetición más o menos sugerente, un mensaje irónico, grotesco o disparatado. Para cerrar el círculo, Lee Friedlander se autorretrata con una clara intención de despedirse y agradecernos que le hayamos acompañado en su maravillosa e inspiradora aventura. Muy recomendable.

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Friedlander's car photos tickle a part of my brain. The attention to line and layering of forms inside/outside the car is sublime. The design of the book is refreshingly simple: a square image takes up 95% of the page, page after page. No long academic essays. Let the images speak for themselves. If you enjoy photographing out the car window on road trips half as much as I do, you need to see this book.

[Paul H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Literally only Friedlander could make this work. How much of a genius is this guy? With almost any other photographer on earth, the conceit would wear itself out after 10-20 pages.

[Julie Grace Immink · Rating 5 out of 5]

The American dream

[TrumanCoyote · Rating 3 out of 5]

My favorite's on page 3 (from Savannah). And of course the cover has always been a great one (and reshot for this project presumably). At any rate, I found that the premise did grow a bit tiresome as time wore on. Still, at least Lee has a sense of humor (he does have that going for him). :)

[Yvonne · Rating 1 out of 5]

Brilliant? Ingenious? Nah.
Boring? Yes!
And I do like cars, road trips and photography - a lot, as a matter of fact. Perhaps I'll appreciate this book more when looking at the USA from a car has become obsolete. But even then... nah.

[Kate Kaluzny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Friedlander is an amazing photographer and I love his concept here but I found the majority of the images a bit underwhelming. There was a handful that I loved but overall I wish there had been more that really worked for me.