American Geography

A Reckoning with a Dream

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A powerful, compelling monograph that reveals the reality of the unseen and forgotten contemporary America.

A powerful, compelling monograph that reveals the reality of the unseen and forgotten contemporary America.
American Geography is the visual record of Magnum photographer Matt Black’s five-year, 100,000-mile road trip across 46 states of the United States, plus Puerto Rico. It examines the conditions of powerlessness, prejudice and pragmatism among America’s poor.

The project originated in Matt Black’s exploration of his own home town in California’s rural Central Valley – a place that has been called ‘the other California’ – where one third of the population lives in poverty. Travelling out from that location in 2015, he went on to visit designated ‘poverty areas’ – places with poverty rates of above 20% as defined by the US census. He found that, rather than being anomalies, ‘poverty areas’ are never more than two-hour’s drive apart. They are woven throughout the fabric of the country, yet are cut off from the ‘land of opportunity’.

Matt Black’s compelling black and white photographs, from which one can trace a line back to the FSA Photographers of the 1930s and 1940s such as Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange, are accompanied by his own travelogue – an eclectic combination of observations, overheard conversations in cafés and city buses, diner menus, bus timetables, historical facts and echoes from daily news reports – which enrich the vivid portrait of these ‘states of un-America.’
Extent: 168 pp
Format: Hardback
Illustrations: 100
Publication date: 2021-09-30
Size: 26.2 x 26.5 cm
ISBN: 9780500545355
Foreword
Introduction
1. South and West
2. South and East
3. North and East
4. North and West

Press Reviews

The photographs confer a stoical dignity on these exiles from America’s glossy promise, and notes from Black’s journals reveal how compassionately he listened to their jaunty tales of woe
Observer

Black's] photographs are in stark black and white, and have an almost lino- or woodcut feel to them. Their strong graphic quality – the contrasts between black shadows and harsh sunlight – endow his images with a sharp edge supremely appropriate for his subject
Morning Star

An eye-opener
Black & White Photography

An unflinching and challenging portrayal of its subject matter
Digital Camera Magazine

About the Author

Matt Black is a member of Magnum Photos. He was named as TIME magazine’s Instagram Photographer of the year in 2014, and has over 230,000 Instagram followers. The awards and honours he has received include the W. Eugene Smith Award, and two Robert F. Kennedy Journalism awards.

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