'America in Crisis' Exhibition Review
A new exhibition at London's Saatchi Gallery serves as a fifty-year follow-up to Magnum Photos' landmark 1969 project
By
Adam Wells
January 28, 2022
First opening in as an exhibition in 1969 at Manhattan’s Riverside Museum before being published as a landmark book in the same year, America in Crisis featured the work of 18 photographers documenting a divided nation following the tumultuous election of Richard Nixon and shortly following the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Now, a new exhibition opening at London’s Saatchi Gallery serves as a follow-up more than fifty years later, presenting photography from the original exhibition alongside modern imagery, and inviting visitors to consider the changes - or lack thereof - that the United States has gone through.
The intent of the exhibition is made clear in its first section which deconstructs, then openly refutes the concept of the American Dream, with a following section explicitly addressing the wealth disparity at the heart of American inequality. Rather than simply presenting the images chronologically, or separating the modern photographs from those of the original project, the exhibition draws explicit parallels between America’s past and present. In one section entitled ‘A Streak of Violence’, for instance, Elliott Erwitt’s famous photograph of Jackie Kennedy at JFK’s funeral is placed alongside Philip Montgomery’s photographing of police brutality at 2020 civil rights protest in Minneapolis following the murder of George Floyd.
In presenting the consequences of violence in 1968 alongside its proliferation in contemporary America, America in Crisis forces viewers to trace the narrative of injustice throughout the nation’s history, and to see contemporary inequalities as the natural progression of those in the past. Notable here, however, is the interactive final room of the exhibition, in which large screens display a random three images alongside each-other at the press of a button. Inspired by a similar contraption at the original 1969 show, the installation serves as an interrogation into the ways these photographs are displayed, the context of the surrounding gallery space, and the implicit messaging created simply by placing images side-by-side.
While America in Crisis ultimately serves as a retrospective of US history over the last fifty years, the exhibition ends by considering the uncertainty and potential conflict of the future; one of the flagship images in the promotion of the exhibition has been Balazs Gardi’s photography of the January 6th Capitol riots in the wake of false accusations of electoral fraud in the 2021 presidential election. Similarly, Anastasia Samoylova depicts the destruction caused by the climate crisis in her photographs of Florida following the flooding of 2017, suggesting that a nation which so frequently defines itself by its apparent isolationism and self-reliance coming to terms with a global threat. If its title suggests an investigation into America’s crisis of identity amidst past and present turbulence, then America in Crisis’ final section operates as a stark reminder of the divisions which may be caused by the continued struggles for rights, as well as the existential global threat the climate crisis poses.
First opening in as an exhibition in 1969 at Manhattan’s Riverside Museum before being published as a landmark book in the same year, America in Crisis featured the work of 18 photographers documenting a divided nation following the tumultuous election of Richard Nixon and shortly following the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Now, a new exhibition opening at London’s Saatchi Gallery serves as a follow-up more than fifty years later, presenting photography from the original exhibition alongside modern imagery, and inviting visitors to consider the changes - or lack thereof - that the United States has gone through.
The intent of the exhibition is made clear in its first section which deconstructs, then openly refutes the concept of the American Dream, with a following section explicitly addressing the wealth disparity at the heart of American inequality. Rather than simply presenting the images chronologically, or separating the modern photographs from those of the original project, the exhibition draws explicit parallels between America’s past and present. In one section entitled ‘A Streak of Violence’, for instance, Elliott Erwitt’s famous photograph of Jackie Kennedy at JFK’s funeral is placed alongside Philip Montgomery’s photographing of police brutality at 2020 civil rights protest in Minneapolis following the murder of George Floyd.
In presenting the consequences of violence in 1968 alongside its proliferation in contemporary America, America in Crisis forces viewers to trace the narrative of injustice throughout the nation’s history, and to see contemporary inequalities as the natural progression of those in the past. Notable here, however, is the interactive final room of the exhibition, in which large screens display a random three images alongside each-other at the press of a button. Inspired by a similar contraption at the original 1969 show, the installation serves as an interrogation into the ways these photographs are displayed, the context of the surrounding gallery space, and the implicit messaging created simply by placing images side-by-side.
While America in Crisis ultimately serves as a retrospective of US history over the last fifty years, the exhibition ends by considering the uncertainty and potential conflict of the future; one of the flagship images in the promotion of the exhibition has been Balazs Gardi’s photography of the January 6th Capitol riots in the wake of false accusations of electoral fraud in the 2021 presidential election. Similarly, Anastasia Samoylova depicts the destruction caused by the climate crisis in her photographs of Florida following the flooding of 2017, suggesting that a nation which so frequently defines itself by its apparent isolationism and self-reliance coming to terms with a global threat. If its title suggests an investigation into America’s crisis of identity amidst past and present turbulence, then America in Crisis’ final section operates as a stark reminder of the divisions which may be caused by the continued struggles for rights, as well as the existential global threat the climate crisis poses.
First opening in as an exhibition in 1969 at Manhattan’s Riverside Museum before being published as a landmark book in the same year, America in Crisis featured the work of 18 photographers documenting a divided nation following the tumultuous election of Richard Nixon and shortly following the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Now, a new exhibition opening at London’s Saatchi Gallery serves as a follow-up more than fifty years later, presenting photography from the original exhibition alongside modern imagery, and inviting visitors to consider the changes - or lack thereof - that the United States has gone through.
The intent of the exhibition is made clear in its first section which deconstructs, then openly refutes the concept of the American Dream, with a following section explicitly addressing the wealth disparity at the heart of American inequality. Rather than simply presenting the images chronologically, or separating the modern photographs from those of the original project, the exhibition draws explicit parallels between America’s past and present. In one section entitled ‘A Streak of Violence’, for instance, Elliott Erwitt’s famous photograph of Jackie Kennedy at JFK’s funeral is placed alongside Philip Montgomery’s photographing of police brutality at 2020 civil rights protest in Minneapolis following the murder of George Floyd.
In presenting the consequences of violence in 1968 alongside its proliferation in contemporary America, America in Crisis forces viewers to trace the narrative of injustice throughout the nation’s history, and to see contemporary inequalities as the natural progression of those in the past. Notable here, however, is the interactive final room of the exhibition, in which large screens display a random three images alongside each-other at the press of a button. Inspired by a similar contraption at the original 1969 show, the installation serves as an interrogation into the ways these photographs are displayed, the context of the surrounding gallery space, and the implicit messaging created simply by placing images side-by-side.
While America in Crisis ultimately serves as a retrospective of US history over the last fifty years, the exhibition ends by considering the uncertainty and potential conflict of the future; one of the flagship images in the promotion of the exhibition has been Balazs Gardi’s photography of the January 6th Capitol riots in the wake of false accusations of electoral fraud in the 2021 presidential election. Similarly, Anastasia Samoylova depicts the destruction caused by the climate crisis in her photographs of Florida following the flooding of 2017, suggesting that a nation which so frequently defines itself by its apparent isolationism and self-reliance coming to terms with a global threat. If its title suggests an investigation into America’s crisis of identity amidst past and present turbulence, then America in Crisis’ final section operates as a stark reminder of the divisions which may be caused by the continued struggles for rights, as well as the existential global threat the climate crisis poses.
First opening in as an exhibition in 1969 at Manhattan’s Riverside Museum before being published as a landmark book in the same year, America in Crisis featured the work of 18 photographers documenting a divided nation following the tumultuous election of Richard Nixon and shortly following the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Now, a new exhibition opening at London’s Saatchi Gallery serves as a follow-up more than fifty years later, presenting photography from the original exhibition alongside modern imagery, and inviting visitors to consider the changes - or lack thereof - that the United States has gone through.
The intent of the exhibition is made clear in its first section which deconstructs, then openly refutes the concept of the American Dream, with a following section explicitly addressing the wealth disparity at the heart of American inequality. Rather than simply presenting the images chronologically, or separating the modern photographs from those of the original project, the exhibition draws explicit parallels between America’s past and present. In one section entitled ‘A Streak of Violence’, for instance, Elliott Erwitt’s famous photograph of Jackie Kennedy at JFK’s funeral is placed alongside Philip Montgomery’s photographing of police brutality at 2020 civil rights protest in Minneapolis following the murder of George Floyd.
In presenting the consequences of violence in 1968 alongside its proliferation in contemporary America, America in Crisis forces viewers to trace the narrative of injustice throughout the nation’s history, and to see contemporary inequalities as the natural progression of those in the past. Notable here, however, is the interactive final room of the exhibition, in which large screens display a random three images alongside each-other at the press of a button. Inspired by a similar contraption at the original 1969 show, the installation serves as an interrogation into the ways these photographs are displayed, the context of the surrounding gallery space, and the implicit messaging created simply by placing images side-by-side.
While America in Crisis ultimately serves as a retrospective of US history over the last fifty years, the exhibition ends by considering the uncertainty and potential conflict of the future; one of the flagship images in the promotion of the exhibition has been Balazs Gardi’s photography of the January 6th Capitol riots in the wake of false accusations of electoral fraud in the 2021 presidential election. Similarly, Anastasia Samoylova depicts the destruction caused by the climate crisis in her photographs of Florida following the flooding of 2017, suggesting that a nation which so frequently defines itself by its apparent isolationism and self-reliance coming to terms with a global threat. If its title suggests an investigation into America’s crisis of identity amidst past and present turbulence, then America in Crisis’ final section operates as a stark reminder of the divisions which may be caused by the continued struggles for rights, as well as the existential global threat the climate crisis poses.
First opening in as an exhibition in 1969 at Manhattan’s Riverside Museum before being published as a landmark book in the same year, America in Crisis featured the work of 18 photographers documenting a divided nation following the tumultuous election of Richard Nixon and shortly following the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Now, a new exhibition opening at London’s Saatchi Gallery serves as a follow-up more than fifty years later, presenting photography from the original exhibition alongside modern imagery, and inviting visitors to consider the changes - or lack thereof - that the United States has gone through.
The intent of the exhibition is made clear in its first section which deconstructs, then openly refutes the concept of the American Dream, with a following section explicitly addressing the wealth disparity at the heart of American inequality. Rather than simply presenting the images chronologically, or separating the modern photographs from those of the original project, the exhibition draws explicit parallels between America’s past and present. In one section entitled ‘A Streak of Violence’, for instance, Elliott Erwitt’s famous photograph of Jackie Kennedy at JFK’s funeral is placed alongside Philip Montgomery’s photographing of police brutality at 2020 civil rights protest in Minneapolis following the murder of George Floyd.
In presenting the consequences of violence in 1968 alongside its proliferation in contemporary America, America in Crisis forces viewers to trace the narrative of injustice throughout the nation’s history, and to see contemporary inequalities as the natural progression of those in the past. Notable here, however, is the interactive final room of the exhibition, in which large screens display a random three images alongside each-other at the press of a button. Inspired by a similar contraption at the original 1969 show, the installation serves as an interrogation into the ways these photographs are displayed, the context of the surrounding gallery space, and the implicit messaging created simply by placing images side-by-side.
While America in Crisis ultimately serves as a retrospective of US history over the last fifty years, the exhibition ends by considering the uncertainty and potential conflict of the future; one of the flagship images in the promotion of the exhibition has been Balazs Gardi’s photography of the January 6th Capitol riots in the wake of false accusations of electoral fraud in the 2021 presidential election. Similarly, Anastasia Samoylova depicts the destruction caused by the climate crisis in her photographs of Florida following the flooding of 2017, suggesting that a nation which so frequently defines itself by its apparent isolationism and self-reliance coming to terms with a global threat. If its title suggests an investigation into America’s crisis of identity amidst past and present turbulence, then America in Crisis’ final section operates as a stark reminder of the divisions which may be caused by the continued struggles for rights, as well as the existential global threat the climate crisis poses.
First opening in as an exhibition in 1969 at Manhattan’s Riverside Museum before being published as a landmark book in the same year, America in Crisis featured the work of 18 photographers documenting a divided nation following the tumultuous election of Richard Nixon and shortly following the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Now, a new exhibition opening at London’s Saatchi Gallery serves as a follow-up more than fifty years later, presenting photography from the original exhibition alongside modern imagery, and inviting visitors to consider the changes - or lack thereof - that the United States has gone through.
The intent of the exhibition is made clear in its first section which deconstructs, then openly refutes the concept of the American Dream, with a following section explicitly addressing the wealth disparity at the heart of American inequality. Rather than simply presenting the images chronologically, or separating the modern photographs from those of the original project, the exhibition draws explicit parallels between America’s past and present. In one section entitled ‘A Streak of Violence’, for instance, Elliott Erwitt’s famous photograph of Jackie Kennedy at JFK’s funeral is placed alongside Philip Montgomery’s photographing of police brutality at 2020 civil rights protest in Minneapolis following the murder of George Floyd.
In presenting the consequences of violence in 1968 alongside its proliferation in contemporary America, America in Crisis forces viewers to trace the narrative of injustice throughout the nation’s history, and to see contemporary inequalities as the natural progression of those in the past. Notable here, however, is the interactive final room of the exhibition, in which large screens display a random three images alongside each-other at the press of a button. Inspired by a similar contraption at the original 1969 show, the installation serves as an interrogation into the ways these photographs are displayed, the context of the surrounding gallery space, and the implicit messaging created simply by placing images side-by-side.
While America in Crisis ultimately serves as a retrospective of US history over the last fifty years, the exhibition ends by considering the uncertainty and potential conflict of the future; one of the flagship images in the promotion of the exhibition has been Balazs Gardi’s photography of the January 6th Capitol riots in the wake of false accusations of electoral fraud in the 2021 presidential election. Similarly, Anastasia Samoylova depicts the destruction caused by the climate crisis in her photographs of Florida following the flooding of 2017, suggesting that a nation which so frequently defines itself by its apparent isolationism and self-reliance coming to terms with a global threat. If its title suggests an investigation into America’s crisis of identity amidst past and present turbulence, then America in Crisis’ final section operates as a stark reminder of the divisions which may be caused by the continued struggles for rights, as well as the existential global threat the climate crisis poses.
First opening in as an exhibition in 1969 at Manhattan’s Riverside Museum before being published as a landmark book in the same year, America in Crisis featured the work of 18 photographers documenting a divided nation following the tumultuous election of Richard Nixon and shortly following the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Now, a new exhibition opening at London’s Saatchi Gallery serves as a follow-up more than fifty years later, presenting photography from the original exhibition alongside modern imagery, and inviting visitors to consider the changes - or lack thereof - that the United States has gone through.
The intent of the exhibition is made clear in its first section which deconstructs, then openly refutes the concept of the American Dream, with a following section explicitly addressing the wealth disparity at the heart of American inequality. Rather than simply presenting the images chronologically, or separating the modern photographs from those of the original project, the exhibition draws explicit parallels between America’s past and present. In one section entitled ‘A Streak of Violence’, for instance, Elliott Erwitt’s famous photograph of Jackie Kennedy at JFK’s funeral is placed alongside Philip Montgomery’s photographing of police brutality at 2020 civil rights protest in Minneapolis following the murder of George Floyd.
In presenting the consequences of violence in 1968 alongside its proliferation in contemporary America, America in Crisis forces viewers to trace the narrative of injustice throughout the nation’s history, and to see contemporary inequalities as the natural progression of those in the past. Notable here, however, is the interactive final room of the exhibition, in which large screens display a random three images alongside each-other at the press of a button. Inspired by a similar contraption at the original 1969 show, the installation serves as an interrogation into the ways these photographs are displayed, the context of the surrounding gallery space, and the implicit messaging created simply by placing images side-by-side.
While America in Crisis ultimately serves as a retrospective of US history over the last fifty years, the exhibition ends by considering the uncertainty and potential conflict of the future; one of the flagship images in the promotion of the exhibition has been Balazs Gardi’s photography of the January 6th Capitol riots in the wake of false accusations of electoral fraud in the 2021 presidential election. Similarly, Anastasia Samoylova depicts the destruction caused by the climate crisis in her photographs of Florida following the flooding of 2017, suggesting that a nation which so frequently defines itself by its apparent isolationism and self-reliance coming to terms with a global threat. If its title suggests an investigation into America’s crisis of identity amidst past and present turbulence, then America in Crisis’ final section operates as a stark reminder of the divisions which may be caused by the continued struggles for rights, as well as the existential global threat the climate crisis poses.
First opening in as an exhibition in 1969 at Manhattan’s Riverside Museum before being published as a landmark book in the same year, America in Crisis featured the work of 18 photographers documenting a divided nation following the tumultuous election of Richard Nixon and shortly following the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Now, a new exhibition opening at London’s Saatchi Gallery serves as a follow-up more than fifty years later, presenting photography from the original exhibition alongside modern imagery, and inviting visitors to consider the changes - or lack thereof - that the United States has gone through.
The intent of the exhibition is made clear in its first section which deconstructs, then openly refutes the concept of the American Dream, with a following section explicitly addressing the wealth disparity at the heart of American inequality. Rather than simply presenting the images chronologically, or separating the modern photographs from those of the original project, the exhibition draws explicit parallels between America’s past and present. In one section entitled ‘A Streak of Violence’, for instance, Elliott Erwitt’s famous photograph of Jackie Kennedy at JFK’s funeral is placed alongside Philip Montgomery’s photographing of police brutality at 2020 civil rights protest in Minneapolis following the murder of George Floyd.
In presenting the consequences of violence in 1968 alongside its proliferation in contemporary America, America in Crisis forces viewers to trace the narrative of injustice throughout the nation’s history, and to see contemporary inequalities as the natural progression of those in the past. Notable here, however, is the interactive final room of the exhibition, in which large screens display a random three images alongside each-other at the press of a button. Inspired by a similar contraption at the original 1969 show, the installation serves as an interrogation into the ways these photographs are displayed, the context of the surrounding gallery space, and the implicit messaging created simply by placing images side-by-side.
While America in Crisis ultimately serves as a retrospective of US history over the last fifty years, the exhibition ends by considering the uncertainty and potential conflict of the future; one of the flagship images in the promotion of the exhibition has been Balazs Gardi’s photography of the January 6th Capitol riots in the wake of false accusations of electoral fraud in the 2021 presidential election. Similarly, Anastasia Samoylova depicts the destruction caused by the climate crisis in her photographs of Florida following the flooding of 2017, suggesting that a nation which so frequently defines itself by its apparent isolationism and self-reliance coming to terms with a global threat. If its title suggests an investigation into America’s crisis of identity amidst past and present turbulence, then America in Crisis’ final section operates as a stark reminder of the divisions which may be caused by the continued struggles for rights, as well as the existential global threat the climate crisis poses.
First opening in as an exhibition in 1969 at Manhattan’s Riverside Museum before being published as a landmark book in the same year, America in Crisis featured the work of 18 photographers documenting a divided nation following the tumultuous election of Richard Nixon and shortly following the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Now, a new exhibition opening at London’s Saatchi Gallery serves as a follow-up more than fifty years later, presenting photography from the original exhibition alongside modern imagery, and inviting visitors to consider the changes - or lack thereof - that the United States has gone through.
The intent of the exhibition is made clear in its first section which deconstructs, then openly refutes the concept of the American Dream, with a following section explicitly addressing the wealth disparity at the heart of American inequality. Rather than simply presenting the images chronologically, or separating the modern photographs from those of the original project, the exhibition draws explicit parallels between America’s past and present. In one section entitled ‘A Streak of Violence’, for instance, Elliott Erwitt’s famous photograph of Jackie Kennedy at JFK’s funeral is placed alongside Philip Montgomery’s photographing of police brutality at 2020 civil rights protest in Minneapolis following the murder of George Floyd.
In presenting the consequences of violence in 1968 alongside its proliferation in contemporary America, America in Crisis forces viewers to trace the narrative of injustice throughout the nation’s history, and to see contemporary inequalities as the natural progression of those in the past. Notable here, however, is the interactive final room of the exhibition, in which large screens display a random three images alongside each-other at the press of a button. Inspired by a similar contraption at the original 1969 show, the installation serves as an interrogation into the ways these photographs are displayed, the context of the surrounding gallery space, and the implicit messaging created simply by placing images side-by-side.
While America in Crisis ultimately serves as a retrospective of US history over the last fifty years, the exhibition ends by considering the uncertainty and potential conflict of the future; one of the flagship images in the promotion of the exhibition has been Balazs Gardi’s photography of the January 6th Capitol riots in the wake of false accusations of electoral fraud in the 2021 presidential election. Similarly, Anastasia Samoylova depicts the destruction caused by the climate crisis in her photographs of Florida following the flooding of 2017, suggesting that a nation which so frequently defines itself by its apparent isolationism and self-reliance coming to terms with a global threat. If its title suggests an investigation into America’s crisis of identity amidst past and present turbulence, then America in Crisis’ final section operates as a stark reminder of the divisions which may be caused by the continued struggles for rights, as well as the existential global threat the climate crisis poses.
First opening in as an exhibition in 1969 at Manhattan’s Riverside Museum before being published as a landmark book in the same year, America in Crisis featured the work of 18 photographers documenting a divided nation following the tumultuous election of Richard Nixon and shortly following the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Now, a new exhibition opening at London’s Saatchi Gallery serves as a follow-up more than fifty years later, presenting photography from the original exhibition alongside modern imagery, and inviting visitors to consider the changes - or lack thereof - that the United States has gone through.
The intent of the exhibition is made clear in its first section which deconstructs, then openly refutes the concept of the American Dream, with a following section explicitly addressing the wealth disparity at the heart of American inequality. Rather than simply presenting the images chronologically, or separating the modern photographs from those of the original project, the exhibition draws explicit parallels between America’s past and present. In one section entitled ‘A Streak of Violence’, for instance, Elliott Erwitt’s famous photograph of Jackie Kennedy at JFK’s funeral is placed alongside Philip Montgomery’s photographing of police brutality at 2020 civil rights protest in Minneapolis following the murder of George Floyd.
In presenting the consequences of violence in 1968 alongside its proliferation in contemporary America, America in Crisis forces viewers to trace the narrative of injustice throughout the nation’s history, and to see contemporary inequalities as the natural progression of those in the past. Notable here, however, is the interactive final room of the exhibition, in which large screens display a random three images alongside each-other at the press of a button. Inspired by a similar contraption at the original 1969 show, the installation serves as an interrogation into the ways these photographs are displayed, the context of the surrounding gallery space, and the implicit messaging created simply by placing images side-by-side.
While America in Crisis ultimately serves as a retrospective of US history over the last fifty years, the exhibition ends by considering the uncertainty and potential conflict of the future; one of the flagship images in the promotion of the exhibition has been Balazs Gardi’s photography of the January 6th Capitol riots in the wake of false accusations of electoral fraud in the 2021 presidential election. Similarly, Anastasia Samoylova depicts the destruction caused by the climate crisis in her photographs of Florida following the flooding of 2017, suggesting that a nation which so frequently defines itself by its apparent isolationism and self-reliance coming to terms with a global threat. If its title suggests an investigation into America’s crisis of identity amidst past and present turbulence, then America in Crisis’ final section operates as a stark reminder of the divisions which may be caused by the continued struggles for rights, as well as the existential global threat the climate crisis poses.
First opening in as an exhibition in 1969 at Manhattan’s Riverside Museum before being published as a landmark book in the same year, America in Crisis featured the work of 18 photographers documenting a divided nation following the tumultuous election of Richard Nixon and shortly following the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Now, a new exhibition opening at London’s Saatchi Gallery serves as a follow-up more than fifty years later, presenting photography from the original exhibition alongside modern imagery, and inviting visitors to consider the changes - or lack thereof - that the United States has gone through.
The intent of the exhibition is made clear in its first section which deconstructs, then openly refutes the concept of the American Dream, with a following section explicitly addressing the wealth disparity at the heart of American inequality. Rather than simply presenting the images chronologically, or separating the modern photographs from those of the original project, the exhibition draws explicit parallels between America’s past and present. In one section entitled ‘A Streak of Violence’, for instance, Elliott Erwitt’s famous photograph of Jackie Kennedy at JFK’s funeral is placed alongside Philip Montgomery’s photographing of police brutality at 2020 civil rights protest in Minneapolis following the murder of George Floyd.
In presenting the consequences of violence in 1968 alongside its proliferation in contemporary America, America in Crisis forces viewers to trace the narrative of injustice throughout the nation’s history, and to see contemporary inequalities as the natural progression of those in the past. Notable here, however, is the interactive final room of the exhibition, in which large screens display a random three images alongside each-other at the press of a button. Inspired by a similar contraption at the original 1969 show, the installation serves as an interrogation into the ways these photographs are displayed, the context of the surrounding gallery space, and the implicit messaging created simply by placing images side-by-side.
While America in Crisis ultimately serves as a retrospective of US history over the last fifty years, the exhibition ends by considering the uncertainty and potential conflict of the future; one of the flagship images in the promotion of the exhibition has been Balazs Gardi’s photography of the January 6th Capitol riots in the wake of false accusations of electoral fraud in the 2021 presidential election. Similarly, Anastasia Samoylova depicts the destruction caused by the climate crisis in her photographs of Florida following the flooding of 2017, suggesting that a nation which so frequently defines itself by its apparent isolationism and self-reliance coming to terms with a global threat. If its title suggests an investigation into America’s crisis of identity amidst past and present turbulence, then America in Crisis’ final section operates as a stark reminder of the divisions which may be caused by the continued struggles for rights, as well as the existential global threat the climate crisis poses.
