What We Bought: The New World: Scenes from the Denver Metropolitan Area, 1970-1974

I recently reviewed Robert Adams' photo book  denver: A Photographic Survey of the Metropolitan Area, 1970-1974 (Yale University Art Gallery)  and 'What we bought' should really be considered together as Adams overview of the city landscape back in the early seventies. My review of 'denver' equally applies to this book of 193 tritone photos.Regarding the actual book production, part of my 'denver' review is worth repeating:It's all very well haveing stunning photos but I've seen (and own) several photo books where the actual book detracts from the contents. With 'denver' everything works perfectly. The design was by Katy Homans, who I felt contributed to the success of several Lee Friedlander titles, Thomas Palmer did the separations and you can see how good these are by looking at the sky in any of the photos. You can see clouds and texture which in many photo books just fade into the whiteness of the paper. Meridian Printing did their bit too. You don't see many books that are printed in six hundred line screen and with denver there is a spot varnish to almost lift the images of the page. A beautifully produced book of stunning images.Adams with these two books helped to create, with others, the photographic genre: The New Topographics, a new way of looking at the man-made landscape. Denver has probably changed considerably since these fascinating photos documented the spread of the city into the countryside but I think they capture the vibrancy of the American New West even now.

Adams work is pointed and important. The Denver evolution since the fifties has been sad. This book’s images set much of this out.

Un libro fotografico piuttosto difficile da trovare, pubblicato per la prima volta nel 1995, con fotografie risalenti agli anni ‘70. Il libro indaga l’urbanizzazione dell’area di Denver, in Colorado insieme a “The New West” e “Denver”. Le immagini del libro e del lavoro di Adams, documentano la contraddizione tra il bisogno di avere una casa (e quindi l’urbanizzazione) e le inevitabili modifiche al territorio e all’ambiente naturale. Le foto del libro mostrano ambienti urbani in aree periferiche, strade desolate e le persone mentre fanno shopping. E’ una pubblicazione che a me piace molto, perché attraverso le foto traspaiono la sincera identificazione e il legame dell’autore con la terra del Colorado e il dispiacere per la tensione tra natura e antropizzazione .

This book, as well as 'denver' and 'The New West' are what gave Robert Adams his beacon position in American photography and are excellent books for the person who want to start diving into this artists work.I say that because many books of later work may be difficult to appreciate without knowledge of the founding context shown so beautifully in these 3 books of early works.Any of the books will do - you don't need all, but you will want to own all when you have been captured by his beautiful and meaningful images.