American Pictures (1985) [pdf]

http://www.american-pictures.com/english/book/American%20Pictures-small-size.pdf

by brudgers • 7 years ago

90 20 7 years ago

miobrien• 7 years ago

Fascinating. Where did you find this?

brudgers• 7 years ago

On Youtube, I subscribe to The Louisiana Channel (for the Louisiana Museum in Denmark). Arthur Jafa mentions American Pictures in this recent interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iprTrTgXvZ8&t=0s. So I googled it.

beebmam• 7 years ago

This is profoundly good and deeply human writing.

alphadog• 7 years ago

Being born in the 1980s I was curious to see what the American Black population's poverty rate was in the 1980s. To my surprise it was as high as 35% [1].

1. https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/demo/visualizations...

perfmode• 7 years ago

50% around 1959... wow

pjc50• 7 years ago

Not really surprising given that was a deliberate policy objective of lots of places in the pre-civil rights era?

Even as late as 1985 the police could carry out what in any other country would be described as a terrorist attack, leaving a number of people dead and burning down 65 houses, without serious consequences to themselves. https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/05/18/407665820...

ecoled_ame• 7 years ago

This is so great.

fiblye• 7 years ago

I skimmed through and every page I landed on was an interesting slice of life. The pictures feel “authentic”, more so than the typical magazine photos I come across.

Grustaf3• 7 years ago

This has been for sale as a paper book for decades, it’s very popular. Jacob is also very frequently invited to talk about his pictures and experiences in America and he is still a well known figure in Danish society.

He was our neighbour for 4 years and he’s very friendly, open and very nuanced for an activist of sorts. He often organises events for immigrants and unfortunate people, and invites them to his home. At some point he had a dozen people living there.

If you like the book buy a paper copy or invite him to speak. He’s by no means poor but I’m sure he makes good use of any money he makes.

interfixus2• 7 years ago

This may well be worth the read, and certainly received its fair share of hype in the late seventies, but be aware that the author - at least in his native Denmark - has been repeatedly exposed for somewhat inventive interpretations of truth. For example, it has been firmly established that in actual fact he did not - as he claims in American Pictures - participate in or even experience any fighting at Wounded Knee in 1973, where he apparently only arrived when the incident was effectively over.

jacobush2• 7 years ago

I only quickly read to page 11, (all pages super interesting) but I don't think it says outright he was there, though strongly implies it. But it says Wounded Knee made it apparent to him he was not a fighter.

interfixus2• 7 years ago

Holdt's propensity for fabrication is well known. To the extent that that he was once featured on a Danish site reminiscent of The Onion - about how he accompanied Apollo 11 to the Moon, but arrived late for take-off and had to cling to the ascending Saturn V. On arrival, he found only sad and disenfranchised nazis there.

b0blee• 7 years ago

This is so shocking! I lived though this era as a young white man in California, poor but totally unaware of the inhumane conditions that the book portrays. My ignorance frightens me. I wonder what atrocities still exist in our world today, and what we can do to bring them to an end.

sabarn01• 7 years ago

I grew up in Appalachia we took food to people who lived in shacks. The county next to mine got electricity from the recc in 1979.

hestefisk• 7 years ago

This is a classic.

American Pictures (1985) [pdf]

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