Sheldon Statewide: Joel Sternfeld
Sheldon Museum of Art
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07/27/2022
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Learn more about a work from the 2022-2023 Sheldon Statewide exhibition, “On The Road Again.” This photograph is titled "Exhausted Renegade Elephant, Woodland Washington" and was made by Joel Sternfeld in 1979. Sheldon Statewide is an annual program through which artworks from the museum’s collection travel to venues throughout Nebraska. Since its inception in 1987, the program has taken exhibitions to 25 communities, reaching more than 365,000 people. “On The Road Again” will be presented in Chadron, North Platte, McCook, Grand Island, York, Beatrice, Fremont, and Falls City.
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- [00:00:00.775](gentle music)
- [00:00:08.580]Joel Sternfeld was part of the
- [00:00:10.230]same distinct artistic tradition
- [00:00:12.450]as many of the other photographers in this exhibition.
- [00:00:15.930]As photography gained prominence as a medium,
- [00:00:18.690]artists set off on cross country road trips
- [00:00:20.940]to see what their cameras could reveal about America.
- [00:00:24.150]Walker Evans did so in the 1930s
- [00:00:26.520]and Robert Frank followed him in 1955,
- [00:00:29.220]as we can see from these two images in Sheldon's collection.
- [00:00:33.000]In 1978, Joel Sternfeld did the same.
- [00:00:36.480]He described himself as someone who grew up with a vision
- [00:00:39.120]of classical regional America
- [00:00:41.310]and the order it seemed to contain.
- [00:00:43.530]And he said that he was looking to find beauty and harmony
- [00:00:46.260]in the increasingly uniform
- [00:00:48.180]technological and disturbing America.
- [00:00:51.930]Unlike those before him
- [00:00:53.340]who produced small scale black and white photographs,
- [00:00:56.370]Sternfeld's creation were in full color and a large format.
- [00:01:00.720]The wider scope of these images allowed Sternfeld
- [00:01:03.450]to focus on both the landscape and the people of America.
- [00:01:07.380]We can see this dual attention
- [00:01:09.000]in works like Exhausted Renegade Elephant,
- [00:01:11.670]Woodland Washington.
- [00:01:14.280]Upon first glance, a viewer might hardly know
- [00:01:16.590]where to start with this photograph.
- [00:01:18.660]Due to the wide view of Sternfeld's camera,
- [00:01:21.270]the central drama seems small
- [00:01:23.340]and located just left of center,
- [00:01:25.470]making it difficult to immediately locate.
- [00:01:28.470]Sternfeld himself must have been positioned far back
- [00:01:31.380]and elevated from the scene
- [00:01:33.150]in order to offer so much foreground.
- [00:01:36.300]Thick brush and tall evergreens framed the image,
- [00:01:39.000]the absurdity of which becomes clear
- [00:01:40.890]the longer one looks.
- [00:01:42.840]An elephant lies exhausted as the title tells us
- [00:01:46.020]in the middle of a double lane road.
- [00:01:48.480]People are clustered on both sides of the road
- [00:01:50.790]with a few standing very close to the elephant,
- [00:01:53.220]perhaps cooling it down with water
- [00:01:55.020]that puddles beneath the animal.
- [00:01:57.900]A sheriff's car is parked further back on the road,
- [00:02:00.570]the open door suggesting the immediacy
- [00:02:02.550]of the whole situation.
- [00:02:05.100]Sternfeld took this photograph during a road trip
- [00:02:07.230]funded by an award he won from the Guggenheim Foundation.
- [00:02:10.650]He bought a Volkswagen van and a tripod
- [00:02:12.870]for his new large format camera for this trip.
- [00:02:16.380]Talking about his anticipation of the adventure,
- [00:02:18.870]Sternfeld said, I was propelled by this very strong sense
- [00:02:22.650]that I might disgrace myself,
- [00:02:24.420]that I was taking this wonderful opportunity
- [00:02:26.430]and absolutely blowing it.
- [00:02:29.010]Almost a decade after he set out,
- [00:02:30.840]he produced American Prospects,
- [00:02:33.060]a book of photographs in which our elephant features.
- [00:02:36.390]In between teaching photography
- [00:02:37.830]at Sarah Lawrence college in New York,
- [00:02:40.020]Sternfeld continues to publish books of photography
- [00:02:42.720]that explored the dualities and contradictions of America.
- [00:02:46.680]Sternfeld calls this the great underlying theme of my work,
- [00:02:50.100]the utopian vision of America
- [00:02:51.990]contrasted with a dystopian one.
- [00:02:54.990]We see a bit of this in Exhausted Renegade Elephant,
- [00:02:57.960]a beautiful country road
- [00:02:59.160]contrasted with a distressed out of place animal.
- [00:03:02.670]Some sources say that the elephant escape from nearby zoo,
- [00:03:05.880]others a circus.
- [00:03:07.620]Sternfeld himself notes that,
- [00:03:09.667]"no individual photo explains everything,
- [00:03:12.510]that's what makes photography such a wonderful
- [00:03:14.520]and problematic medium."
- [00:03:17.040]This photograph is certainly a rich source
- [00:03:19.050]for questions and conversations.
- [00:03:21.480]Do you think that Sternfeld just happened
- [00:03:23.190]across this wild scenario or did he get a heads up?
- [00:03:26.700]How do you think this photograph fits
- [00:03:28.470]into Sternfeld's artistic interest
- [00:03:30.480]in the beauty and harmony of America?
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