sideways

Josef Wolfgang Mayer, Jörg Rubbert

On the road in the United States—in the land of promises, images of which are anchored in the collective memory as icons of the twentieth century, the photographers Josef Wolfgang Mayer and Jörg Rubbert explore provincial America. On the back roads between Minnesota and Mississippi, they cross the vast terrain while their works depict the relics of more glamorous days, abandoned places, but also signs of life and optimism. Anything that’s no longer needed is put out for sale on the side of the road. Cars, facades, stores, signs, and mannequins refer to the past in a world that must invent itself anew. Sober, occasionally ironic, these color photographs, taken in the tradition of straight photography (shot in analogue, medium format), takes viewers on a visual journey far from the big cities, carrying the baggage of memories, longings, and an uncertainty about how things are supposed to go from here in terms of the American Dream.