The (New)Americans

In 1958 Robert Frank, a Swiss photographer, published a book of photos that he called The Americans. The book offered snapshots, often gritty and at times subversive and racially charged, of his 18 month journey through the U.S. In the world of fine art photography the book is a landmark piece (indeed a friend of mine called it the Grapes of Wrath of photography), and for a country with an ongoing identity crisis the book represents a seminal glimpse of an ongoing attempt to define, or at least suggest, what these people are, these Americans. Jack Kerouac, suffering from a similar identity crisis, and therefore a similar preoccupation, offered to write the introduction to the book, sealing the deal with an unassuming "Sure, I can write something about these pictures."

Fifty years later the identity crisis persists and the fiscal state of affairs that was bludgeoning The Americans seems to be taking a second swing in a new, twisted manifestation at The New Americans. The New Americans is a project that Edurne Diaz, a Spanish photographer, has undertaken as both a tribute to Robert Frank and as a quest to attempt to articulate these peculiar people, these Americans.

Together with the young writer Blair Mardian, sometimes passing as legendary icon Claude Winters, Edurne Diaz has embarked on a peculiar but important project. An ongoing blog of this concerted effort can be followed here:http://claudewinters.blogspot.com/2009/08/made-up-dreams.html

But the question to ask in this world of digital immediacy is, why publish the book at all? Why wait for the culmination of the 18 month project when one can simply blog along, archive digitally, create the artifact of art virtually? Of course the answer is both obviously implicit and impossible to articulate. Perhaps The New Americans will present an argument of its own if we still have the patience to let it state its case.