Photojournalism Now: Friday Round Up - 27 January, 2017

This week on Photojournalism Now two very different bodies of work: Dorothea Lange's censored photographs from 1942 of Japanese-Americans being "relocated", and a new exhibition in London of American photographer Joel Sternfeld's work.

Censored Photos:
Dorothea Lange - Japanese-Americans in 1942

Dorothea Lange’s photographs of the ‘relocation’ of Japanese-Americans in 1942, were hidden away in the National Archives in the USA until 2006. The book, Impounded: Dorothea Lange and the Censored Images of Japanese American Internment by historians Linda Gordon and Gary Okihiro, features 119 images of Lange’s that were originally censored by the US military. These images “tell the story of the thousands of lives unalterably shattered by racial hatred brought on by the passions of war”. I thought it an important series to show at a time when there is such racial unrest in the US, to remind us of the consequences of turning against our own citizens. 

Exhibition:

Joel Sternfeld - Colour Photographs 1977-1988

Wet 'n Wild Aquatic Theme Park, Orlando, Florida, September 1980 © Joel Sternfeld courtesy Luhring Augustine Gallery and Beetles + Huxley Gallery

Beetles+Huxley is one of my favourite galleries in London, known for its discerning curation, wonderful space and cool location. I first came across Beetles+Huxley when they showed Berenice Abbott's work a couple of years ago and have been a fan ever since. 

Today its latest exhibition opens, the first solo UK show for American photographer Joel Sternfeld in 15 years. The show features both well known images and some never exhibited. Included are vintage dye transfer prints from one of Sternfeld’s best known bodies of work, “American Prospects”, which was published as a book in 1987 and is considered “one of the most influential bodies of photographic work from this period”. Shot on an 8x10 camera, which Sternfeld carried with him across the United States, this work is in the vein of the documentary tradition established in the 1930s by Walker Evans and furthered by Robert Frank in the 1950s. 

McLean, Virginia, December 1978 

© Joel Sternfeld courtesy Luhring Augustine Gallery and Beetles + Huxley Gallery

Rustic Canyon, Santa Monica, California, May 1979 

© Joel Sternfeld courtesy Luhring Augustine Gallery and Beetles + Huxley Gallery

Red Rock State Campground (Boy), Gallup, New Mexico, September 1982 

© Joel Sternfeld courtesy Luhring Augustine Gallery and Beetles + Huxley Gallery

Near Ketchum, Idaho, October 1980 

© Joel Sternfeld courtesy Luhring Augustine Gallery and Beetles + Huxley Gallery

Kansas City, Kansas, May 1983 

© Joel Sternfeld courtesy Luhring Augustine Gallery and Beetles + Huxley Gallery

Grafton, West Virginia, February, 1983 

© Joel Sternfeld courtesy Luhring Augustine Gallery and Beetles + Huxley Gallery

Agoura, California, February 1988 

© Joel Sternfeld courtesy Luhring Augustine Gallery and Beetles + Huxley Gallery

Gallery director Giles Huxley-Parlour says, ”Sternfeld's work has become an influential part of art history and has shaped the way that the world looks at American life and culture. His pioneering early colour photographs present a country of immense beauty and opportunity, but one seemingly stuck at a turning point: proud of its past as a noble experiment in democracy, but fraught with various new and disturbing forces. His work resonates strongly today at a time of such upheaval in American politics and society." 

Joel Sternfeld Colour Photographs 1977-1988
Beetles + Huxley Gallery
3-5 Swallow Street
London W1B 4DE
27 January – 18 February