Junked Cars
.
“For a shoot
to be good –suggestive of more than just what it is– it has to come perilously
near being bad, just a view of staff”.
Robert Adams
.
In 1946 Peter Blake
published God's Own Junkyard: The Planned Deterioration of America's
Landscape, a controversial but
influential book on the progressive visual degradation –for profit– produced by advertising billboards, characterless buildings,
and discarded objects from our commodities world. After enjoying several road trips over the American Southwest I wouldn’t
say that this American landscape is God's own junkyard: the countryside and its natural landmarks provide fantastic places
for aesthetic contemplation and visual enjoyment. Yet, I have been able to confirm a weird passion for collecting junk –individual
and collectively–, mainly because there is room for that. There is a kind of general attachment to useless and old gear. And the
American canonical discarded object is the car, that symbol of personal and familiar status and the pivotal instrument for a way
of life established over the certain need of personal transportation. While it’s hard to believe for me that these old vehicles are
ever going to the sold or reused, they are just kept and piled in these kind of sacred private or public graveyards, offering
themselves with nostalgia as charming ugliness for the camera.
influential book on the progressive visual degradation –for profit– produced by advertising billboards, characterless buildings,
and discarded objects from our commodities world. After enjoying several road trips over the American Southwest I wouldn’t
say that this American landscape is God's own junkyard: the countryside and its natural landmarks provide fantastic places
for aesthetic contemplation and visual enjoyment. Yet, I have been able to confirm a weird passion for collecting junk –individual
and collectively–, mainly because there is room for that. There is a kind of general attachment to useless and old gear. And the
American canonical discarded object is the car, that symbol of personal and familiar status and the pivotal instrument for a way
of life established over the certain need of personal transportation. While it’s hard to believe for me that these old vehicles are
ever going to the sold or reused, they are just kept and piled in these kind of sacred private or public graveyards, offering
themselves with nostalgia as charming ugliness for the camera.
.
.
Iñaki Bergera. New York,
2012