Curated by Jens Hoffmann

Adopting the sturdy New Deal model of the Farm Security Administration project that put Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Ben Shahn, and others to work recording the impact of the Great Depression, the Wattis Institute has asked twelve contemporary photographers to fan out across the US and bring back images of America in its current period of economic uncertainty. Count on Walead Beshty, Larry Clark, Roe Ethridge, Katy Grannan, William E. Jones, Sharon Lockhart, Catherine Opie, Martha Rosler, Collier Schorr, Stephen Shore, Alec Soth, and Hank Willis Thomas—a truly impressive roster—to provide illuminating, provocative, and probably contradictory perspectives. Evans’s 1938 book, American Photographs, inspired the show’s title as well as the design of its catalogue; ephemera, films, and photographs by the original FSA documentarians will provide historical context.

— Vince Aletti