Edited by Joshua Chang. Foreword by John Szarkowski. Introduction by Robert Adams.
The open American West is nearly gone. A longstanding classic of photobook publishing, The New West is a photographic essay about what came to fill it—freeways, tract homes, low-rise business buildings and signs. In five sequences of pictures taken along the front wall of the Colorado Rocky Mountains, Robert Adams has documented a representative sampling of the whole suburban Southwest. The views have a double power. At first they shock; normally we try to forget the commercial squalor they depict. Slowly, however, they reveal aspects of the geography—the shape of the land itself, for example—that are beyond man's harm. Adams has written that "all land, no matter what has happened to it, has over it a grace, an absolutely persistent beauty," and the photographs show this. Originally published in 1974, The New West is now regarded as a classic, standing alongside Walker Evans' American Photographs and Robert Frank's The Americans in the pantheon of landmark volumes of photography exploring American culture and society. This beautiful new edition marks the iconic book's fortieth anniversary and includes new scans.
Robert Adams (born 1937) has photographed the geography of the American West for over 40 years. His work has been widely exhibited both in Europe and the United States, including in the seminal 1975 exhibition New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape. He has over 40 publications and is a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, the Spectrum International Prize for Photography, the Hasselblad Award, two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships and the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize.
Featured image is reproduced from Robert Adams: The New West.
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
The Chicago Tribune
Michael Robbins
Robert Adams, in his landmark 1974 collection "The New West," now reissued in a gorgeous edition by Steidl, is in many ways [Timothy] O'Sullivan's truest heir.
AnOther Magazine
Daisy Woodward
There is an inherent, inescapable allure, stemming from the photographer's aptitude for composition and ability to encapsulate the atmospheric quality of light so unique to the area... Through his exceptionally executed, deeply poetic works, we are reminded that we – with our limited life spans and endless aspirations – pale in comparison to the longstanding landscapes that surround us.
STATUS: Out of stock
Temporarily out of stock pending additional inventory.
FROM THE BOOK
PUBLICATION HISTORY
■ First published in hardback by Colorado Associated University Press in 1974
■ Second edition published in 2000 by Walther König
■ Facsimile of the first edition published by Aperture in 2008
■ Steidl’s 2015 hardcover edition marks the book’s 40th anniversary
"Green Mountain" is reproduced from Robert Adams: The New West, Steidl's exquisitely printed fortieth anniversary edition of this New Topographics classic, first published in 1974. In the Foreword, John Szarkowski writes, "Adams' pictures describe with precision and fastidious justice some of the mortal and venial sins that we have committed against our land in recent decades. The gaggle of plywood ranch houses at the foot of the mountain, fenced in by the trailer parks, acid neon, and extruded plastic of the highway, is an affront even to our modest expectations. But his pictures also show us that these settlements express human aspirations, and that they are therefore not uninteresting. It is clear also that these places are very casually built, and wil therefore acquire character soon enough. Amateur carpenters, willful repairmen, and the fearful climate will add a sort of architectural variety. And as Adams says, the sun shines on these works also, even if not quite so brightly as it did." continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 9 x 10 in. / 136 pgs / 56 tritone. LIST PRICE: U.S. $40.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $54 ISBN: 9783869309002 PUBLISHER: Steidl AVAILABLE: 3/22/2016 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: Out of stock TERRITORY: NA ONLY
Published by Steidl. Edited by Joshua Chang. Foreword by John Szarkowski. Introduction by Robert Adams.
The open American West is nearly gone. A longstanding classic of photobook publishing, The New West is a photographic essay about what came to fill it—freeways, tract homes, low-rise business buildings and signs. In five sequences of pictures taken along the front wall of the Colorado Rocky Mountains, Robert Adams has documented a representative sampling of the whole suburban Southwest. The views have a double power. At first they shock; normally we try to forget the commercial squalor they depict. Slowly, however, they reveal aspects of the geography—the shape of the land itself, for example—that are beyond man's harm. Adams has written that "all land, no matter what has happened to it, has over it a grace, an absolutely persistent beauty," and the photographs show this. Originally published in 1974, The New West is now regarded as a classic, standing alongside Walker Evans' American Photographs and Robert Frank's The Americans in the pantheon of landmark volumes of photography exploring American culture and society. This beautiful new edition marks the iconic book's fortieth anniversary and includes new scans.
Robert Adams (born 1937) has photographed the geography of the American West for over 40 years. His work has been widely exhibited both in Europe and the United States, including in the seminal 1975 exhibition New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape. He has over 40 publications and is a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, the Spectrum International Prize for Photography, the Hasselblad Award, two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships and the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize.
