Interior of roadside restaurant, North Carolina, 1983
Los Angeles, California, 1983
The overgrown sign, North Carolina, 1983
Landscape with tyres, California, 1983
West and East Main Street, Whiteville, Tennessee, 1983
In March 1983, Gerry Johansson started a Coast to Coast photographic odyssey with the aim of meeting photographers, editors, and printers, all the while producing his own images along the way. This journey is an important stage in the development of Gerry Johansson’s work. For him, it would be the first opportunity to fully immerse himself in a photographic project, and to explore the traces of his predecessors so as to take his own work a few steps further. On this occasion, he traded his 35mm camera from the 1960s for a large-format camera that allowed him to move from “Street Photography” inspired by photographers like Walker Evans, Paul Strand, or Helen Levitt, to “Social Landscapes” in and between small cities or by capturing the vastness of the American countryside as he travelled. Every evening, from motel to motel, he developed his 8x10’’ negatives and even printed his contact sheets as a visual record of his road trip.
The eponymously titled book recounts this voyage. It includes a selection of images taken by Gerry Johansson in New York at the age of seventeen, as well as portraits of the photographers – Henry Wessel Jr., Garry Winogrand, William Eggleston, Richard Benson – he encountered a few years prior to and during his famous journey of 1983, along with sixteen Motel Prints chosen from the contact sheets printed at that time.
The portfolio Coast to Coast is on view at Large Glass from September 27th to November 10th, 2023
Date
September 2023
Type
Portfolio
10 Gelatin silver contact prints with a book
Prints
Printed by the artist
Signed and numbered on verso with pencil and stamp
25,1 x 20 cm / 43 x 36,5 cm
Book
Text and images by Gerry Johansson
Signed and numbered
32 x 24 cm, 48p., 40 ill. n&b
Cloth box, screen printed
45,6 x 38,2 x 6,9 cm
Edition
10 (+ 3 Aps)
Design
Giulia Bacchetta Francalanci, Progettazione Editoriale,
Filippo Nostri and Anna Biagetti, Faenza
Credits
Produced by Imagebeeld Edition, Brussels
© 2023 Imagebeeld Edition, Brussels
© 2023 Gerry Johansson for the text and the photographs
Gerry Johansson (born in 1945, Örebro, Sweden) is known for his countless images, shot in and between small cities using a Rolleiflex, typically in black and white and in small format, as precise as they are discreet, frequently with a real graphic dimension, and occasionally imbued with a very subtle sense of humour.
Since 1985, Gerry Johansson has produced a large number of books including the recently published ‘American Winter’ (2018) and ‘Spanish Summer’ (2022), both MACK. In Sweden, he has been awarded the Region Skånes kulturpris (2012) and the Lars Tunbjörk Prize (2019).
Selected Exhibitions:
Stepping Stones: Three Photographic Journeys, Large Glass, London (2023), Spazio Labo, Bologna, Italy (solo, 2020); ICO Foundation, Madrid, Spain (group, 2019); Kunsthalle Rostock, Germany (solo, 2018); Museum of Modern Art, Bogota, Colombia (group, 2013); Hasselblad Center, Göteborg, Sweden (solo, 2007); Moderna Museet, Sweden (solo, 1982 and 2003).