The Anthropocene in Art

Joel Sternfeld is a central representative of the New Color Photography of the 1970s. Photography was still fighting for its place as an artistic medium − especially color photography. With his series American Prospects (1978-1986), Sternfeld made a decisive contribution. He traveled the USA and captured life in his home country with a critical eye. The bizarre and the everyday found their way into his work, but so did nature, which had been altered and slowly destroyed by humans. The artistic pictures also offer an insight into the socio-political circumstances of the time. The ALBERTINA in Vienna is showing Joel Sternfeld: American Prospects and, by looking into the past, brings us face to face with current environmental discussions. The show runs from September 28, 2023 to January 21, 2024.

Joel Sternfeld was born in New York City in 1944 and studied at Dartmouth College, one of the oldest universities in the United States. He received two Guggenheim Fellowships (1978 and 1982) for his famous photo series, and he won prizes such as the Higashikawa Prize for Photography in 1985 and the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize in 2004. His work can now be found in the Art Institute of Chicago, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Modern Art New York, the Tate Modern in London, and the Museum Folkwang in Essen, among others.