This book of glorious color photographs by David Graham documents some mighty odd pieces of Americana. A vivid celebration of the strange and dreamlike within the gaudy and mundane.
Taking Liberties shows you an America you’re probably never seen before. This book of glorious color photographs by David Graham documents some mighty odd pieces of Americana - from a shoe-shaped house in Hallam, Pennsylvania, to a large statue of Lenin in Dallas, Texas. Graham’s talent for artful composition and his sharp eye for luxurious color make this collection a vivid celebration of the strange and dreamlike within the gaudy and mundane.
Just looking at the front cover, we know we are in for something out of the ordinary. Here is a photo of parking lot in Dallas, Texas. In the background is a wall (perhaps the outside of a building) against which some cars are parked, and on the wall is a giant mural of someone pulling a toy cart. The mural is simply enormous; the foot of the child pulling the cart is larger than the pickup truck parked right under it. But it is not just the weirdness and grandeur of the scene which catches our attention. The way the scene is laid out is equally striking. The child in the mural is pulling the cart by a rope, but Graham composed the shot in such a way that the rope appears to be tethered to the parking lot pay booth rather than the cart. The pay booth, of course, is real, not part of the mural, but we have to look twice to realize this. It is a complex, multi-layered composition that plays with perception and the interplay of 3-D space with 2-D surfaces.
Graham’s book has 68 photographs, including the one on the back cover. Each photo is accompanied by a caption recording when and where it was shot. The dates of creation range from 1988 to 2001, and the places range from Maine to California, but states in the south and west (plus Pennsylvania) are over-represented. There are, for example, no photos from Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, or D.C. Most of the settings are rural. This book is a record of those places that you pass on the long highways of the American interior, those cheesy roadside attractions and oddball artworks that break up the vast stretches of near-emptiness.
In New Iberia, Louisiana, there is a gigantic inflatable snowman standing in the front of a low building overgrown with weeds. On the snowman’s rotund belly are the words: “Merry Christmas Y’all.” In Bath, Maine, a decrepit-looking wooden mermaid protrudes from the dark blue waters of a lake, looking as if she might be in the middle of an erotic act, the word “SIN” printed on her green tail-thigh. In Glen Avon, California, a makeshift wooden sign sticks up from a picturesque golden field, advertising a “Hair Doctor,” followed by a phone number.
So much for signs. There is a towering model of a rocket ship in Warren, New Hampshire; a couple of monumental sculpted archers in Auburn, California; a pyramid-shaped motel in Reading, Pennsylvania; a colorful faux totem pole in Gallup, New Mexico. Some of the photos have a tinge of creepiness, especially an image of a barren “Survival Town” in the Yucca Flat, Nevada Test Site.
The colors in almost all the photos are vivid and striking, which contributes to the chintzy, trashy, yet appealing feel of the world that Graham is chronicling. Notably absent from all but a few photos are living people. Through the lens of Graham’s creative vision, this world of advertising, roadside statues, and quirky personal art is devoid of human habitation.
Taking Liberties is a rich, original look at the folk art and vernacular culture of the American west, south, and mid-Atlantic. Even for those who live in this world or have passed through it on a cross-country tour, Graham's work brings a new perspective to it, presenting a kind of alternate universe which allures and haunts by its combination of strangeness and familiarity, its magnification of everyday junk into something grotesque, stylish and magnificent - paying tribute, as the title implies, to good old, freewheeling American freedom of expression.
This is the third book in a trilogy by David Graham, of which the other two books are Only in America (Alfred A. Knopf, 1991) and American Beauty (Aperture, 1987) (he has produced other books, too). Graham also regularly works for magazines such as the New York Times, Newsweek, Time, Fortune and Forbes.
