Jacob Holdt: American Pictures 1970-1975
When Jacob Holdt was 24 years old in 1971, he decided like many of his europeans of the era, to travel across the whole American continent.
He landed in Canada with the aim of rapidly crossing through the United States to get to the true destination of his travels: South America.
But from the moment he crossed the Canadian border, Jacob Holdt was struck by an America characterised by poverty and the exclusion of the socially disadvantaged. In his outrage, he described the misery he was witnessing in letters to his parents who, for their part, remained incredulous. His father nevertheless sent him a small camera so that he could back up his accounts with tangible proof.
This is how the long voyage of the young Dane through the United States started, not to be completed until five years and several thousand snapshots later, with a deeply moving work: American Pictures 1970-1975, published as a book in 1978.
Images are copyright of Jacob Holdt
