Jesus is in your…

This work is in conversation with modernism in a number of ways. I attempted to place myself in the cultural ethos of the late 50s America and come up with a project that a young (anti-authoritarian) photographer might create.
I looked to the work of Robert frank, not for stylistic influence, but to pick up on some of the themes examined in his work The Americans. Specifically, I wanted to examine the perceived moral bankruptcy of American Christianity, and the ways in which Christian imagery (and pathology) permeates our daily life. Additionally, I wanted to examine consumerism, which was entering a new phase in the post-war years. The dynamic of suburbanization was radically reshaping society. Identity was becoming progressively more entangled with (and indistinguishable from) consumption. This created a crisis of meaning, which radically reshaped the cultural terrain. While this period is often regarded as one of cultural stagnation, there was much of interest going on in the margins of the academy and fine arts. Benjamin and Adorno were making incisive critiques of modern society in general and consumerism in specific. Much of the work of this period had social critique at its core, and this aspect resonates within my work.
For stylistic inspiration I drew on the work of Harry Callahan and the experimental sprit of the Bauhaus and Moholy-Nagy. This series was shot on black and white 35mm film with a rangefinder, a common way of working during the period. 35mm film is especially tied to modernism because it engendered a new way of working and thinking, which mimicked cultural shifts at work in the greater society. Furthermore, 35mm film represented a democratization and massification of the photographic medium.
While this body of work is undeniably influenced by post-modernism, I used the cultural gestalt of the 1950s as a foundation on which to build.