Maine - Gerry Johansson

In 2023, Swedish photographer Gerry Johansson wandered the length and breadth of the state of Maine with a Rolleiflex camera, curious to photograph in a region of the United States he first encountered in Paul Strand’s work five decades ago – Johansson at the time thought Strand’s views of New England were “boring” – and also wondered, “Why is American photography so focused on the West?”

Maine echoes the formal rigor of the author’s earlier books, notably American Winter, Spanish Summer, Meloni Meloni, and Pontiac; the nearly 200 black-and-white photographs follow one another in alphabetical order of the strangely poetic names of the northeastern cities in which they were taken (Bath, Friendship, Purgatory, etc.). Somehow, as in all of the Swedish photographer’s work, none of the images in the sequence attracts attention more than the others, and the meticulous and refined compositions never seem to repeat themselves: the uniqueness of Johansson’s vision is revealed to us in the small details of the everyday landscape, in the shapes that intertwine and in the light that illuminates them.

signed copies available

first edition

stock number: NB674