EAW Gun Club: September 2008

II AMERIKA

Hi! I look forward to meeting you all in two weeks. If you're in the city prior to EAW, please take a moment to swing by ICP. I co-curated and have work in the II AMERIKA exhibition...

II AMERIKA
September 6 – October 12, 2008

Education Gallery: 1114 Avenue of the Americas at 43rd Street
Hours: Monday – Sunday, 10 am – 6 pm

Originally premiered as part of Bushwick Open Studios in June 2008 and entitled simply AMERIKA, this exhibition—II AMERIKA—further expands upon the themes and issues addressed in the original, showcasing a broader spectrum of work and delving deeper into the nation's psyche. Though it would be a mistake to suggest this is a comprehensive review, there is here the making of a statement about where the country is today.

Curated by Nicolas Silberfaden, Deidre Schoo and Tom White and coordinated by Lucy Helton, II AMERIKA brings together the work of 24 photographers and represents a broad social commentary on the United States at this pivotal moment in the country's history.

Hi all. I am really excited about the EAW, and meeting/working with all of you. I have occasionally given gun culture thought, but not enough to pursue it as a story topic. With that said I am really excited about "gun culture." Working on a current story about scrappers here in the bay area, I came across this gun while exploring the homeless camp where some scrappers live. Luckily I photographed it. Not too much later after returning to this portion of the camp it was gone.

I never picked it up, figured out whether it was real, or who it belonged to. Looking at this photo it makes me think about how guns, real or fake, can be used as a status symbol, to boost one's ego, or to intimidate.

Hi everybody:
Mark's post immediately made me think back to this ill-executed outtake from an airshow in Missouri summer before last. I thought a lot about gun culture while living in the middle of the middle of America, and there is something about kids and guns and the values they learn from a young age that gives me an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. I am super excited about our topic and looking forward to meeting all of you and photographizing together...

3 photographs from the archive

Hi, everybody,
It occured to me that I have a couple of pictures related to the theme. Here they are. Sasha.

Hi all! Thanks for setting this up for us Leah, and thanks for the inspiring words to get us started thinking Mr. Greene. I'm looking forward to meeting everyone next week. I wanted to share a picture I took last month that loosely relates to our theme. I was feature hunting at the local county fair and found myself in the poultry barn following a beam of light, basically just waiting for something interesting to fall into the frame. That's when 12-year-old Isaac turned the corner with the toy gun he'd bought earlier that morning at the fair: