Sep - Dec 2005
Prints & Drawings Gallery

Among contemporary photographers, several are working to breathe new life into a distinctly American genre: rural photography. The act of documenting people and places in rural America is not new - during the New Deal era, government organizations such as the Farm Security Administration (FSA) sponsored photographers such as Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange to record the impact of the Great Depression on rural communities. The resulting photographs, which were widely distributed in newspapers and magazines, served as a way to "introduce Americans to America" as well as drum up support for New Deal rural programs. While the political and social context has changed, this tradition continues today in the work of William Christenberry, Matthew Moore, Julie Moos, Paul Shambroom, and Alec Soth, the artists that comprised MASS MoCA's exhibition Regarding the Rural.