About this item

Traveling across the US, the French photographer Emmanuel Georges went in search of the remains of the American dream. Using a large-format camera and a documentary-style approach, Georges expresses a finely tuned feeling for the poetry unique to these places. The result is a kind of photographic road trip of more than 12,000 miles: from Detroit, the former capital of the automobile industry, to Butte, Montana, once a mining city and now half-deserted; through the Rust Belt from Pennsylvania to Arkansas, formerly flourishing cities tell the story of the disappearance of an economic boom.Georges' recurring motifs -- decaying faades of industrial buildings, garages, motels, movie theaters -- become iconic images of American urban landscapes. Profoundly permeated by melancholy, the empty streets, old cars and abandoned gas stations are testimony to the end of the American dream.