After the American Century
2008 marked the 70th anniversary of the publication of Walker Evans’ landmark book, American Photographs, a book that has been a resource and a prompt for me, as for generations of other photographers. Following what I receive as Evans’ core challenge—to create a document of one’s own time as a form of visual literature—After the American Century assesses the zeitgeist of the post-September 11th environment, exploring the fragile prosperity and worn innocence of American civilization in photographs made in many locations across the United States over the past decade.
The slideshow here contains the first 25 photographs of Part One of the project. The second half of the sequence in Part One, plus the sequence of 38 photographs comprising Part Two, are represented in the page-by-page slideshow of the book version of the project, in the link below. A separate link contains the Afterword, which considers Walker Evans’ art and his influence on me.
Page-by-page slideshow of the book, After the American Century
Afterword: “Reading Walker Evans,” by Jason Francisco