Mitch Epstein: American Power
- Art
- / Temporary Exhibitions
- Created on Tuesday, 17 May 2011 23:00
- Published on Tuesday, 17 May 2011 23:00
- Written by Louis Fraysse
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Mitch Epstein's "Amos Coal Power Plant, Raymond City, West Virginia 2004." © Black River Productions, Ltd./ Mitch Epstein |
“To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle,” reads a text in a frame on a desk at Grand Gulf Nuclear Station in Mississippi in a photograph by ...
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Mitch Epstein's "Amos Coal Power Plant, Raymond City, West Virginia 2004." © Black River Productions, Ltd./ Mitch Epstein |
“To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle,” reads a text in a frame on a desk at Grand Gulf Nuclear Station in Mississippi in a photograph by Mitch Epstein. This quote from George Orwell admirably sums up the aim of Epstein’s latest project, “American Power,” now on show at the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson.
This project began with a commission from The New York Times. The entire town of Cheshire, Ohio, was to be razed and abandoned by its inhabitants because of soil contamination caused by the American Electric Power company. While reporting on it, the photographer decided to widen the subject and consider the links between energy and nature, and energy and politics.
In the foreword to the exhibition, Epstein puts forth what he sees as the dual nature of energy in human society. Energy is necessary to progress and to the well-being of society, but it can also lead to such disasters as Chernobyl or, more recently, Fukushima. More precisely, Epstein’s goal was to show how energy has had and still has a definite influence on the American landscape. He spent five years traveling around the United States, becoming what he calls a “energy tourist,” and came back with pictures from all over the country.
Epstein’s journey was no peaceful road trip. In post-9/11 America, photographing power plants suddenly became a suspicious, almost subversive thing to do. He suffered from “systematic harassment” by the police and the FBI during those five years. “If you were Muslim, you’d be cuffed and taken in for questioning,” an FBI agent once told him. A sense of danger lies under the surface of many of Epstein’s photographs. One of the best in this exhibition shows a nice, sunlit suburban garden, with an imposing nuclear reactor looming behind the trees in the background.
What strikes most about the exhibition is the way power plants seem to be everywhere, leading the viewer to wonder how far man is ready to go to produce it. From a spectacular wind farm in Palm Springs, California and a pipeline in the middle of nowhere in Alaska to the enormous Hoover Dam in Nevada and solar panels in the Pentagon’s courtyard, Epstein’s snapshots show the impact that energy production has on nature.
If energy is produced, it must be consumed. One picture simply shows an overview of Las Vegas, the archetype of a city that is an excessive consumer of energy, with its pools, bright lights and gigantic hotels in the middle of the desert. The message is clear: energy production has a huge impact on the environment, and people must be aware of that. In a way, everybody is to blame, because everybody consumes energy.
Epstein’s work is never moralistic. His aim is not to point a finger at the villains, but rather to make clear what is at stake, so people can make up their own minds. The exhibition seems to have helped some people make up theirs; one of the recurring comments in the exhibition’s visitor’s book is, “What have we done?”
Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson: 2, impasse Lebouis, 75014 Paris. Métro: Gaîté. Open Tuesday-Sunday, 1pm-6:30pm; Saturday 11am-6:45pm, Wednesday until 8:30pm. Closed Monday. Admission: 6€. Through July 24. www.henricartierbresson.org
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