Daniel Azoulay Gallery and Aperture Foundation Presents:

Aperture Foundation is pleased to announce the publication of American Pictures, photographs by Jeff Dunas, in October of 2003. In this stunning series of black-and-white photographs, Jeff Dunas captures the spirit of mid-twentieth-century America as it perseveres in neighborhoods and communities across the nation. Focusing his lens on the vernacular architecture and the vestiges of post-industrial consumerism that remain scattered along the roadways of the United States, Dunas documents the small towns, families, and businesses that seem frozen in the social optimism of America during the 1950s and 1960s.

American Pictures took Dunas on a series of crisscrossing journeys through the United States between the years of 1993 and 1999. After working for two decades in Paris, Dunas returned to his homeland in search of a vision of America derived from his childhood memories from the mid-Twentieth Century.

Dunas traveled with his wife Laura in what he describes as his “favorite piece of photographic equipment”—a 1966 Airstream Caravelle trailer. Traveling in this manner liberated his eyes from the typical destinations and allowed him to pursue the mythical landscapes and magical geographies that comprise so much of America. The photographs in American Pictures are nostalgic but never sentimental, evoking the America that Dunas remembers from his childhood while also presenting a contemporary vision of small towns in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century.

In creating the images for American Pictures, Dunas covered vast tracts of land in the states of Texas, Florida, Arkansas, Louisiana, Idaho, Nebraska, Oregon, Mississippi, and his home state of California, collecting images of what he describes as “the ensemble look of America that you feel and breathe.” His work, while never sentimental, is vibrantly present and contemporary. This is not a book of typical Americana, but rather, a very personal view of America from a former ex-patriot who had returned to his country to find it changed, yet somehow retaining the echoes of his childhood memories.

American Pictures highlights the passage of time and the inevitable tide of change in the small, independent communities of the United States. The book is a testament to the enduring optimism and strength of America’s heartland. Photographs from American Pictures reside in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the Fine Arts Museum of Houston, The Santa Barbara Museum of Art, and The Getty Museum.

Jeff Dunas is an award-winning portrait, documentary, and fine-art photographer whose work has been published in major magazines including GQ, Life, Paris Match, Vibe, Esquire, The Face, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Der Spiegel, and the British Journal of Photography. His work has been exhibited at galleries internationally and is widely collected. His previous book, the critically acclaimed State of the Blues (Aperture, 1998), is a series of intimate portraits of the greatest blues performers of our time, including B. B. King, Koko Taylor, Charlie Musselwhite, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, Dr. John, Bonnie Raitt, Bo Diddley, Smokey Wilson, John Lee Hooker, and many others.

Daniel Azoulay Gallery, in conjunction with Aperture Foundation, is pleased to present an exhibition of images from the Aperture Photograph book American Pictures, by award-winning photographer Jeff Dumas,

A Special Press and Collectors Preview is scheduled for Friday, October 31 from 11am – 6pm
And Saturday, November 1 from 12 pm to 5 pm.

BOOK SIGNING: The artist Will be Present From Friday November 7th, from 6pm – 8pm,
and on Saturday November 8th, from 6 – 9pm Book Signing
.
R.S.V.P. (305) 576-1977 for any of the events

The Exhibition will run through Saturday, November 15th

Publication Month: October 2003
115 duotone images
12 ½ X 11 inches
260 pages
hardcover ISBN: 1-931788-23-5
$40.00

A CD with high-resolution images is available upon request

Daniel Azoulay Gallery
3900-A NE 1st Ave
Miami, Florida 33137
Tel.305.576.1977
Fax.305.576.1987
www.danielazoulaygallery.com
danielazoulaygallery@pgoln.net