Is This Place Great or What (SIGNED)

Ulrich, Brian

ISBN 10: 1597111929 / ISBN 13: 9781597111928

Published by New York and Cleveland: Aperture Foundation, Inc., co-published with the Cleveland Museum of Art, 2011

About this Item

Signed by Ulrich, in black ink, to the half title page. Blue cloth covered boards with a photo tipped in to the upper and lower sides. Printed endpapers. No dust jacket, as issued. Photographs by Brian Ulrich. Essay by Juliet B. Schor. 4to (28.5cm x 24.7cm), pp.144 including 1 single-page gatefold and a biography of Ulrich, 95 four-colour images. Published on the occasion of the exhibition "Brian Ulrich: Copia - Retail, Thrift, and Dark Stores, 2001-11", at the Cleveland Museum of Art, 27 August, 2011 - 26 February, 2012. Cited in Martin Parr and Gerry Badger, The Photobook: A History, Volume III (London and New York: Phaidon, 2014). From the publisher: "Is This Place Great or What, Brian Ulrich s long-awaited first monograph, presents the photographer s decade-long exploration of the shifting tectonic plates that make up American consumer society. Ulrich focuses, in part, on photographing the architectural legacies of a retail-driven economy in the midst of collapse shopping malls on the brink of demolition, empty big box stores, and other retail structures in transition. In depicting the disintegration of the former economic and social anchors of the American landscape, Ulrich does more than sketch the fraying surfaces of a shopping-obsessed culture. He has also created a series of clear-eyed yet sympathetic portraits of teenaged shoppers lost in reverie over a new pair of shoes, thrift-store mavens determined to find the best deal possible, and families desperately in search of that perfect purchase. Cinematic and utterly engrossing, these portraits are interspersed among the forlorn landscapes of empty parking lots and foreclosed malls. Tracing a palpable trajectory from irrational exuberance to debt-laden hangover, Ulrich has successfully managed to get under the skin of the current economic crisis, providing a sobering document both personal as well as sociologically astute of the American consumer psyche in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Is This Place Great or What will accompany an exhibition at the Cleveland Museum of Art.".

Seller Inventory # 102

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Is This Place Great or What (SIGNED)
• Publisher: New York and Cleveland: Aperture Foundation, Inc., co-published with the Cleveland Museum of Art
• Publication Date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1597111929
• ISBN 13: 9781597111928
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: New
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)

About this title

Synopsis

This long-awaited first monograph presents Brian Ulrich's decade-long exploration of the shifting tectonic plates that make up American consumerism. The photographer focuses in part on the architectural legacies of a retail-driven economy in the midst of collapse--shopping malls on the brink of demolition, empty big box stores and other retail structures in transition. But Ulrich does more than sketch the fraying surfaces of a shopping-obsessed culture; he also offers clear-eyed yet sympathetic portraits of teenaged shoppers lost in reverie over a pair of shoes, thrift-store mavens determined to find the best deal and families in search of that perfect purchase. Cinematic and utterly engrossing, these portraits are interspersed among the forlorn landscapes of empty parking lots and foreclosed malls. Ulrich gets under the skin of the current financial crisis, tracing a palpable economic trajectory from irrational exuberance to debt-laden hangover and providing a sobering document of the American consumer psyche in crisis in the first decade of the twenty-first century.

About the Authors

Brian Ulrich holds an MFA in photography from Columbia College Chicago. He has had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego. In 2009, he was the recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship. He is represented by Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago; Julie Saul, New York; and Robert Koch Gallery, San Francisco.

Juliet B. Shor is professor of sociology at Boston College, a former Guggenheim Fellow, and the author of "The Overworked American," "The Overspent American," and "Consumerism and Its Discontents."