Joel Sternfeld at Luhring Augustine

Looking at Joel Sternfeld's photographs of everyday 1970s and 80s Americana at Luhring Augustine almost feels like flipping though an album of embarrassing family photos––full of eager smiles, bad haircuts, unintendedly distorted facial expression, and the occasional person not even looking at the camera. Come to think of it, I may have just described the disposable camera film roll that produced my junior prom photos.

Sternfeld's lens journeys across highways to American malls, high schools, cities, and beach towns, capturing commonplace people and scenes. Brought together in the show however, the images (many of which have never been published before) take on a strange quality––the commonplace of yesterday seems so foreign that the images take on a historical role, with Sternfeld as the documentarian.

First Pictures is showing through February 4th, 2012.

LUHRING AUGUSTINE
531 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10011
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Kind of Virgin Suicides-y