- Hardcover: 144 pages
- Publisher: Bulfinch Press UK (Sep 10 2001)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0821227521
- ISBN-13: 978-0821227527
- Product Dimensions: 35.2 x 29.8 x 2.2 cm
- Shipping Weight: 1.8 Kg
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,569,830 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
hotographer Joel Sternfeld turns his exacting eye to American faces, social classes, character types and stereotypes in Stranger Passing. Sternfeld who wowed critics in 1987 with American Prospects devotes a remarkable (and remarkably large) volume to 60 hard-edged, full-color studies of individuals from Manhattan to Malibu, Austin, Texas to Appalachia, in candids and portraits by turns comic, disturbing, angry, pathetic and silly. A surprised lawyer struggles with bundles of laundry; a lumberjack shows off his truck, his logs and his belly button; and "two men on vacation in Bigfoot, Montana" smile through big mustaches at their tiny dog. Journalist Ian Frazier (On the Rez) and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art curator Douglas R. Nickel contribute short essays.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Book Description
Stranger Passing is a fresh view of contemporary society that accompanies a major new exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. With an essay by celebrated novelist and humour writer Ian Frazier and another by Douglas R. Nickel, of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Stranger Passing is an in-depth look at the art of Joel Sternfeld.
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Photographic short stories,
By california-bookworm (California) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Stranger Passing (Hardcover)
These sixty portraits of American strangers are rich with an intelligent, questioning beauty. I was dazzled by the exhibit in San Francisco, but now I'm especially glad to have the accompanying book. I rarely find it worthwhile to purchase museum exhibit catalogues, but what I love about "Stranger Passing" is that I can ponder a given image as long as I like, "reading and re-reading" it as I would a really good short story. Indeed, many of these portraits seem as laden with interpretive possibilities as a story by Chekhov or Alice Munro or T. C. Boyle. From a grizzled woman selling papers in the middle of a Colorado boulevard, to a solitary New York banker having dinner, his aloneness matched by a single tulip in front of his little bistro table: I found myself deeply moved by the lavish yet subtle artistry Sternfeld has bestowed on these people and places--each one unique yet somehow familiar--that he encountered in this strange and wonderful country of ours.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Americans Revisited,
By "incascott" (Pleasanton, CA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Stranger Passing (Hardcover)
This is the best photographic testament to the USA since Robert Frank came to shore and showed us how strange and beautiful our country was nearly fifty years ago. The subject of these photographs are both ordinary and extraordinary people, who we may cross paths with during any given day. The brilliance of Sternfeld's art is the way these images draw you into the world of each subject. Even the most superficially mundane subject such as two suburban kids standing in a cul-de-sac is cause for reflection. Most of these portraits economically use the scenery to define the world of each individual. In the end, the images are a celebration of anonymous Americans (one can't say "typical" because this collection shows you that there is no such thing as a typical American) in common settings. In my mind, the best images here evoke the mystery and power of a Vermeer painting. The way they heighten our experience of everyday images is what I think they call art.A side note: If you have the chance, you must see the exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The hyperreal poster-size prints are a wonder to behold. And the cumulative effect of these images leaves one exaltant. (Oh yeah, there's also a pretty good Ansel Adams exhibit curated by John Szarkowski on the floor above.)
5.0 out of 5 stars
redefining "landscape" photography,
By Boris Aleksandrovsky (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Stranger Passing (Hardcover)
Joel Sternfeld travels the roads of America, and takes pictures with his large-format camera. Although all his pictures include people in various situations (attending a party, selling coffee, hanging out in their own homes, vacationing, promenading, relaxing, observing, working), what he is really interested in, is the depiction of landscapes and soft outplay of the mid-afternoon light. There is an overwhelming sense of loneliness. His composition style is superb; his depiction of quality of light reflections of the industrial surfaces is without precedence. In my opinion, Sternfeld really stands on its own. Not since Robert Frank's "The Americans" have I seen such a collection. His compositions are best reminiscent of Philip-Lorca diCorcia's; but somehow people are not the center of attention (and sometimes not even of focus), what is important is the quality of landscapes and how they shape human lives.
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