Martin Hyers & Will Mebane: Empire

by Martin Hyers (Photographer), Will Mebane (Photographer), Karen Irvine (Text by)

Overview

Between 2004 and 2007, American photographers Martin Hyers and Will Mebane made a series of road trips through the American South, West and East to create a photographic archive of objects. The project yielded more than 9,000 photographs captured in 25 states.

Martin Hyers is one-half of Gentl & Hyers, a New York based photography
team that met while studying photography at Parson’s School of Design. They have been working together since 1993; photographing still life, food, beauty, fashion, interiors & travel for a wide array of editorial and advertising clients. In addition to this commercial work, Hyers is currently involved in an ongoing personal photography project with fellow photographer William Mebane.

A resident of Brooklyn, NY, William Mebane works professionally as a photographer on a wide range of fine-art, commercial and editorial assignments. His work has been exhibited internationally at spaces such as The Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, published by The New York Times Magazine and used in advertising campaigns for brands such as Eileen Fisher and Newcastle. His work has been featured online with new media platforms such as tinyvices.com and Humble Arts.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780988983182
Publisher:	Daylight Books
Publication date:	04/30/2014
Pages:	136
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 11.10(h) x 0.60(d)

Editorial Reviews

★ 07/01/2014
From 2004 to 2007, photographers Hyers and Mebane traveled across the United States to document the possessions, domestic interiors, and workplaces of a cross-section of Americans. Their project came to include 9,000 photographs, a selection of which were exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago in 2013. As the excellent reproductions of the accompanying exhibition catalog make clear, Hyers and Mebane are deeply invested in a photographic tradition of capturing the banality of suburban existence. The images often appear bereft of people and framed by car windows, suggesting that suburban space is not inhabited directly but rather driven through, thus underlining its alienating qualities. Distinguishing the coauthors' work from their forebears is the emphasis they place on the outmoded and decrepit. Instead of gleaming corporate logos and smart phones, we see decades-old computers, shabby houses, dated carpets, and rows of white bread, all of which imbue these images with a sense of the uncanny. This volume does not present the material culture of a contemporary imperial nation, as its title and introductory essay suggest, so much as the spectral artifacts of a past society. VERDICT The images of Hyers and Mebane are highly compelling, and the book is recommended to anyone interested in the history of street photography or American visual culture.—Jonathan Patkowski, CUNY Graduate Ctr.

Library Journal