You Can’t Spell America Without Eric

by Eric Payson

$ 45

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ISBN: 9781576873403

by Eric Payson
Essay by Britt Salvesen

Photography / Americana / “Jackass” Theory
Hardcover
12.25 x 9.25 inches,
152 pages
125 four-color photographs
ISBN: 978-1-57687-340-3

by Eric Payson
Essay by Britt Salvesen

Photography / Americana / “Jackass” Theory
Hardcover
12.25 x 9.25 inches,
152 pages
125 four-color photographs
ISBN: 978-1-57687-340-3

You Can’t Spell America Without Eric, photographer Eric Payson’s fourth monograph, is a contemporary memoir of the people and places encountered by the artist during his travels throughout the United States. In the great tradition of the American road trip, Payson journeys from New York to Los Angeles with stops in the deep South and the sunbelt, documenting his encounters and revealing a dynamic diversity of experiences.

With a keen eye for detail and razor-sharp wit, Payson dissects his America with a stunning Technicolor vision. A woman is frozen in mid-air in the instant before she plunges into a pool; a man is captured, arm outstretched, as he releases a handful of breadcrumbs into the wind for a group of birds overhead; a young girl, wide-eyed and ears covered, screams in her mother’s arms. Featuring an essay by Britt Salvesen, curator of the Center for Creative Photography, You Can’t Spell America Without Eric is the culmination of his compelling vision of American culture.

Eric Payson is a photographer and performance artist. Solo exhibitions of his photographs have been mounted at Galerie Bodo Niemann, Berlin and Rene Fotouhi Fine Art, East Hampton, New York. Payson’s trilogy of powerHouse Books include Ghostplay, Gladiators, and Bobcats (2005, 2004, and 2002, respectively). He lives in New York.

Britt Salvesen holds an MA from the Courtauld Institute of Art and a PhD from the University of Chicago. She is currently the Curator of the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, AZ, and has held posts at the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago. Salvesen has curated nine exhibitions and written or edited numerous texts. Salvesen is the recipient of a Paul Mellon Fellowship for Studies in British Art and the curator and co-author of Harry Callahan: The Photographer at Work (Yale University Press, 2005), a major traveling exhibition and book organized for the CCP. She lives in Tucson, AZ.

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