America

Poised to be the most important photography book of the year, Zoe Strauss's America shines a light on the often unseen people and places in the United States today.

Once in a great while, a photographer and their photographs break new ground and people sit right up and take notice. Zoe Strauss is such a photographer. The Philadelphia native who has brought us searing images of that city's marginalized people and places on the fringe of society, has taken her no holds barred, up close and personal style of photography to the roads less traveled across America. At times witty, touching, poetic, and downright shocking, Zoe Strauss's photographs capture the beauty and struggle of everyday life and resonate as a social document of our time, and as sheer and powerful art.

Zoe Strauss picked up a camera on her 30th birthday, but in only eight years, has generated a huge body of work that has been exhibited in the Whitney Biennial, and has garnered her a United States Artists grant.

Poised to be the most important photography book of 2008, Zoe Strauss' AMERICA shines a light on the often unseen people and places in the United States today. Following in the famed footsteps of Robert Frank: The Americans, but 50 years later, Zoe Strauss traveled across the country as a Gund fellow documenting what she calls "the beauty and struggle of everyday life." In highly formal compositions, she uses photography to create epic narratives that pursue "a hopeful quality in adverse conditions and how people manage to live their lives." Strauss' photographs depict the bittersweet beauty of everyday life and lay bare the human comedy.

Born in Philadelphia, Strauss, a self-taught photographer was given a camera for her 30th birthday and started taking pictures of life in the city's marginal neighborhoods. Described as the chronicler of Philadelphia's mean streets and the town's own Diane Arbus, Under I-95 is the title of her attention-grabbing annual installation. Shows, awards, acclaim and fellowships soon followed the receipt fo her first camera - 2002 Leeway Grant, 2004 Arcadia Works on Paper award, 2005 Pew Fellow Award and Zoe Strauss Night at the Whitney Museum in 2006.