This powerful survey show offers the rare chance to see works by some of the greatest American photographers of the twentieth century brought together. Lenses are turned on the rich and the poor, white neighbourhoods in the deep South and black communities in Harlem, public spaces and private homes. Collectively, the works in this show paint a picture of the state of American society during an era that saw the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War – and resonate with our own times.
Bringing together almost 250 works by 16 iconic photographers, and spanning the 1960s to the late '80s, the exhibition will be one of the largest overviews of North American photography in the UK in recent years.
The show will focus on a generation of photographers that experimented with innovative approaches to documentary photography. Drawing from the collection of the Wilson Centre for Photography, it will include key works by Diane Arbus, Louis Draper, William Eggleston and Bruce Davidson, as well as Stephen Shore.
This timely exhibition will stretch from the Civil Rights Movement to the Reagan Era, three decades that shaped the polarised landscape of America, and will explore shifts in American society and politics, from the decay of city centres and the decline of industry to suburban sprawl and the development of mass advertising.
States of America: Photography from the Civil Rights Movement to the Reagan Era, Nottingham Contemporary, until 26 November.
