Description
‘These Americans by Will Vogt is an escape into the delirious excesses of the USA’s upper class, between 1969 and 1996. These dancing, hunting, and kissing characters are all completely unguarded in front of Vogt’s camera – because he is one of them; they are his family and friends.’ – Wallpaper*
‘The photographs in These Americans depict the wealthy at leisure with their guard down’. – New York Magazine, Vulture
‘These Americans brings together a collection of the photographer’s images, which capture the wealth-flaunting spirit of Reagan’s America… Drawn from Vogt’s impressive archive of 70,000 images, These Americans captures glamour, grandeur and decadence of wealth in cinematic tableaux replete with a playful mix of gravitas and humour’.– AnOther Magazine
For over fifty years, Will Vogt has documented the lives of his family and friends. These Americans presents an intimate portrait of American elites from 1969-1996 on vacation and at play. Private villas, exclusive clubs, racetracks, yachts and hunting lodges provide a backdrop of luxury where Vogt, the ever-present insider, captures the raw beauty and uninhibited excesses of his social circle.
Jay McInerney’s (Bright Lights Big City) accompanying introduction provides an insightful interpretation as he eloquently describes his impression of Vogt’s images and the scenes portrayed in These Americans. “These people are living in the world that their parents and their grandparents inhabited and created. They aren’t rebelling against the previous generation.” …the “images give us a sense of spying on intimate moments, which imbues them with a certain tension and mystery”.
Photographer Will Vogt was raised in Haverford (PA). The oldest of three sons, he was less interested in sports then the children he knew and gravitated instead toward literature, music, and art. He describes his rather affluent childhood as relatively normal for the late 1950's - 60's. That is, until three days after his 16th birthday when he saw Jimi Hendrix live for the first time...
With the publication of Bright Lights, Big City (Random House, 1984) Jay McInerney became a literary sensation, heralded as the voice of a generation. This remarkable novel - Will Vogt's absolute favorite book - chronicled the lives of wealthy New York hedonists and remains one of the most beloved, imitated, and iconic novels in America and abroad.
Jennifer Garza-Cuen received her MFA in photography and MA in the History of Art and Visual Culture with honors from the Rhode Island School of Design.
Garza-Cuen is the recipient of numerous awards including the Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship for Photography, Photo Lucida's Robert Rauschenberg Residency Award, Light Work A-I-R, and the British Journal of Photography & 1854 Media's Female in Focus Award. Garza-Cuen's monograph, Past Paper // Present Marks: Responding to Rauschenberg - in collaboration with Odette England - was published by Radius Books 2021 and received a Rauschenberg Foundation Publication Grant. Garza-Cuen is also Professor of Photography at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi.
Jordan Baumgarten earned his MFA in Photography from the Rhode Island School of Design and a BFA in Photography from The University of the Arts, Philadelphia. The recipient of numerous grants and awards, Baumgarten's work has been exhibited nationally and internationally as well as published in international contemporary photographic journals such as the British Journal of Photography, Vice, The New York Times, Dazed, Hero, Huck and Pop-Up Magazine among others. His most recent monograph Good Sick (Gost Books, 2018) is a photographic portrait of the US opioid crisis, shown through its effects on his neighborhood in Philadelphia.
Design: Cara Buzzell, Providence, Rhode Island.
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