Friedlander: The Museum of Modern Art

Lee Friedlander is one of the most important of the 1960s generation of photographers for whom the posture of disinterested objectivity served as a vehicle for passionate personal inquiries. Published to accompany The Museum of Modern Art’s 2005 exhibition, this volume takes a deep critical look at Friedlander’s abundantly productive career. Including over 800 photographs grouped by series, and an incisive essay by Peter Galassi, Chief Curator of Photography at The Museum of Modern Art, this publication is the most comprehensive review of the photographer’s career to date.

His large body of work—he most often produces extended series of pictures on a chosen theme, then publishes them in book form—is broad in subject matter and supple and complex in style, and focuses on what he calls America’s “social landscape.” At the same time, he has pursued a playful dialogue with artistic tradition—as though open-eyed curiosity about the world and a sophisticated taste for the wiles of picture-making were one and the same thing.—the publisher