Mitch Epstein – American Power | TateShots

I'm Mitch Epstein and I'm here at the Tate Modern galleries with work from a project of mine called American power American power is a series of pictures that I made between 2003 and 2008 that are drawn from the American landscape I in this period wanted to make a piece of work about our cultural relationship to the subject of energy I'm in West Virginia in the vicinity of one of our largest coal-fired power plants I've made a picture that is layered that is got a tree at its center in inert tree and a hamlet but you also feel this kind of overpowering encroachment of Industry and it was that relationship and I wanted to establish here I ended up the site late in the afternoon where I was again at a distance from the power plant itself but my activity was intervened by a local sheriff I was told that I couldn't go pointing my camera at infrastructure anymore so I began to think in ways about the the notion of power as it played itself out between corporations community government nature politics and so on and so forth so when I say American power it begins in a very precise way with the theme of energy in our relationship to it but it deepens and become something that's much more difficult to define this image was made in Biloxi Mississippi in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina I had a trip planned to photograph energy sights along the gulf of the coast of the Gulf of Mexico and then Katrina happened there were trees you know for 50 miles that contained the strewn d'être tiss from this forceful disaster there was something quite haunting about these belongings the idea of a the notion of a bed this you know this this symbol of a kind of home life and all that goes on in a home to make this picture at a time of day where you have this Setting Sun this kind of you know golden light draping the landscape so you have beauty and terror in some way wrestling with each other and I think that sets off a kind of tension that's at the crux of this picture with photography it's the gambit of working with what is it's about looking strong picture will continue to provide rewards and discoveries with repeated looking

Channel: Tate

Views: 14,710

Keywords: Mississpi, [cat:artist interviews], america, OHIO, mitch epstein, [publish:youtube], American Power, [podcast:TateShots], Katrina, photography, hurricane, [channel:active], Art, flag, power station, [cat:exhibitions], photographer, 2011, [date:07.07.2011]

Id: PeKiZUgzrr8

Length: 3min 51sec (231 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 08 2011