The Polarities

This book explores Larry Fink’s recent works, with a selection of pictures taken over the past five years, examining the series of subjects – near and far – that he investigated. Divided into four sections – ‘In Politics,’ ‘Countryside Stories,’ ‘In Town,’ ‘At Home’ – The Polarities offers the chance to follow Fink from Washington, New York, and Panama City to rural Pennsylvania. The portrait of American society that Fink sketches out starting in the 1950s continues. The Polarities narrates modern America, the radical changes between the Obama years and the arrival of Trump, the society of the spectacle – in which ‘the show must go on’ – and the continuing divide between metropolitan and rural areas. Here, Fink’s images recall those of the Farm Security Administration, the great project designed to study American territory between 1935 and 1943.