By Mark Alice Durant, 2016.
"This is the first in a regular series of essays on photobooks. Books discussed in this first installment are Elegy by Justin Kimball, Rift / Fault by Marion Belanger, and Either Limits or Contradictions by Nick Meyer.
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Neither sentimental or cynical, Kimball’s photographs are as elegant as they are indisputable. He is both clear-eyed and quietly compassionate. This is our America. The places that Kimball photographs are far from the pockets of wealth and gentrification that certain shiny urban oases can boast. The social and economic neglect of poor and working families in the late 20th and early 21stcenturies, has created permanent worlds of desperation. These places are vivid symbols of the ravages of trickle-down economics and tax cuts, which instead of creating proud and self-sufficient citizens, has instead offered minimum wage jobs, underfunded schools, lack of health care, and the self-hatred that wicks from the stubborn belief, despite all evidence, that all one has to do is work hard and one will be rewarded. Echoing Walker Evans, Robert Frank, or even Doug Ricard, Kimball might have employed some reference to America in his title. I am pleased that he refrained. He instead titled it Elegy — a sadder, yet more honest suggestion, that the dream of America is no match for its growing despair."