40 years after the release of David Plowden’s The hand of man on America, Mitch Epstein renews and intensifies the message. American Power is a collection of pictures that he defines as “questioning man’s control over nature, its conquest at any price”. It all began in 2003 when he was sent by the New York Times to cover the evacuation of the inhabitants of a polluted city. From 2003 to 2008, he decided to work on a vast project entitled American Power. It consisted of classifying and photographing energy production sites across the United States, from coalmines to nuclear plants to refineries…

The project was designed to show their impact on the landscape and its destruction, pushing spectators to think further about their “relationship to energy”.

In the conclusion to the exhibition’s book-catalogue, Mitch Epstein tells of his hardships during those years. “I suffered from systematic harassment” by the police, the FBI, Homeland Security, but also from the symbiosis between politics and energy providers. “With these pictures, I wanted to expose the beauty and horror of 21st century America, an America attached to the comforts of the past yet seeking a better future”.

An appealing project that was internationally acclaimed, exposed at the Metropolitan of New York before being distinguished by the prestigious Pictet Photography Prize. American Power will be exposed in the collections of the Tate Museum of London.

Bernard Perrine
Bernard.Perrine1@orange.fr

American Power, Mitch Epstein, Steidl (2009)

Exhibition

Mitch Epstein
American Power
May 4 – July 24, 2011

Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation
2 impasse Lebouis
75014 Paris