A photographic fever dream of America’s Midwest, from the author of Homegrown and Domestic Vacations.
For her third monograph, Midwest Materials, Julie Blackmon has created a new body of work that sparkles with the wit, dark humor and irony for which the photographer has gained such renown. Finding insight and inspiration in the seeming monotony of her “generic American hometown” of Springfield, Missouri, Blackmon constructs a captivating, fictitious world that is both playful and menacing. “I think of myself as a visual artist working in the medium of photography,” Blackmon notes, “and my assignment is to chart the fever dreams of American life.” Midwest Materials follows Domestic Vacations (Radius Books, 2008) and Homegrown (Radius Books, 2014).