Mitch Epstein

Twenty years of images by the acclaimed American photographer, pioneer of color art photography Mitch Epstein (Holyoke, Massachusetts, 1952) is a photographer who helped pioneer fine-art color photography in the 1970s. Focusing primarily on America as a place and an idea over the last five decades, Epstein produced iconic images of his country and immersive, visually arresting stories on the urgent political and cultural challenges America has to face as a nation. American Nature explores the inextricable link between the American landscape and psyche. Published on the occasion of the Turin exhibition, the book presents three seminal series (American Power, Property Rights and Old Growth) and premiers two multimedia works: Clear Cut, a projection of Darius Kinsey''s early 20th century photographs of logging in the Pacific Northwest forests of the United States set to a modern soundtrack; and Forest Waves, a multi-channel video-sound installation made in the old growth forests of Massachusetts, which features tonal music performed there by Mike Tamburo and Samer Ghadry. American Nature is an inquiry into the rapacious consumption of resources by American industry and the bold risks that individuals undertake to preserve what is left of precolonial land for future generations. It includes a selection from all three photographic series, Kinsey photographs from Clear Cut and film stills from Forest Waves. Together, they tell the story of the resilience and fragility of the natural world. Also included are essays by acclaimed art historians Makeda Best and Robert Slifkin and curator Brian Wallis, and an in-depth interview between Wallis and Epstein, which delves into the artist''s practice, and his evolving artistic and political resolve.

Auteur

Brian Wallis, former Chief curator and director of exhibitions at the International Center of Photography in New York (where he organized numerous exhibitions), is executive director of The Center for Photography at Woodstock.