Untitled (Friends)

2016 - NFT (NFT)

Gregory Halpern


Gregory Halpern spent five years shooting ZZYZX , and another year editing the results, from an estimated thousand rolls of film, about half of which were shot in the final year after his Guggenheim Fellowship enabled him to live in California. According to Halpern, the series “is grounded in reality, but it occupies an in-between space, between documentary and a certain sense of mystery.” …“I see ZZYZX as part of a continuum but edging a little closer towards fiction.” The series title is borrowed from the village Zzyzx (pronounced zye-zix), formerly Soda Springs, but rechristened by the mineral water pioneer, Curtis Howe Springer, in 1944. The eccentric Springer named it after what he claimed to be the last word in the English language. The images in the ZZYZX series begin in the desert east of Los Angeles and drift west, through the city, and finally end at the Pacific ocean. This general westward movement is a pilgrimage toward the ocean, and alludes to the manifest expansion of America from east to west. The people, places, and animals in the series did appear before Halpern’s camera, but he has selected and organized the images into a work of fiction or fantasy, with assistance from artist Jason Fulford on the sequence. The work brings together seemingly disparate images of environmental crisis, kinship, entertainment, urbanity, and stunning vistas. There is a strange narrative harmony to the series—the sublime, the psychedelic, and the self-destructive. Southern California is unpredictable, wild. Cultures and histories coexist, the beautiful sits next to the ugly, the redemptive next to the despairing, and all under the golden state’s radiant light, as transcendent as it is brutal.


Gregory Halpern is an acclaimed American photographer whose practice is predicated on wandering. Combined with a curiosity about the elusive qualities of Americanness, he makes images that mix documentary and fiction. He has been celebrated for his pioneering photobooks, which involve rich colors, thoughtful sequencing, and evocative associations between images as a form of storytelling.


Colors:



Related works sharing similar palette

Podcast 106: Boom
© » ARTS EQUATOR

Podcast 106: Boom | ArtsEquator Skip to content In our latest podcast, we discuss Boom, a production by A Mirage which took place on 1-20 July 2022...

Gypsy
© » KADIST

Pascal Shirley

2006

Gypsy shows an ambivalent scene, in which broken blinds and its unsmiling subject are balanced with the stilllife plentitude of watermelon slices and the beautifully lit nudity of the sitter...

United States Artists announces its 2024 fellows, including six for visual arts.
© » ARTSY

United States Artists announces its 2024 fellows, including six for visual arts...

Myanmar’s artists reflect on seventy years of history in seminal exhibition (via Frontier Myanmar)
© » ARTS EQUATOR

Myanmar’s artists reflect on seventy years of history in seminal exhibition (via Frontier Myanmar) | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia ArtsEquator Radar August 2, 2018 ARTIST HTEIN Lin climbs onto a chair...

Reunion — Hand-Embroidered School Class Portraits
© » LENS CULTURE

Reunion — Hand-Embroidered School Class Portraits - Photographs and text by Diane Meyer | LensCulture Feature Reunion — Hand-Embroidered School Class Portraits By obscuring the faces with embroidery — which would typically be the most important parts of these elementary school class portraits — otherwise overlooked details are brought into focus, such as body language and other embodiments of social convention...

Johanna Hedva “If You’re Reading This, I’m Already Dead” at JOAN, Los Angeles
© » MOUSSE MAGAZINE

Johanna Hedva “If You’re Reading This, I’m Already Dead” at JOAN, Los Angeles — Mousse Magazine and Publishing...

Blockbuster Pop art show in Mumbai marks a new type of exhibition for India
© » THEARTNEWSPER

Blockbuster Pop art show in Mumbai marks a new type of exhibition for India Art market Museums & heritage Exhibitions Books Podcasts Columns Technology Adventures with Van Gogh Search Search Mumbai blog Blockbuster Pop art show in Mumbai marks a new type of exhibition for India Pop: Fame, Love, Power at the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre is an unprecedented but surface-level survey for a broad audience Kabir Jhala 9 February 2024 Share Installation view of Pop: Fame, Love, Power at the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre, Mumbai Courtesy of NMACC When Nita Ambani, India’s wealthiest woman, opened her eponymous cultural centre in Mumbai last March, many in the art world were intrigued...

Petrogenesis, Petra Genetrix
© » KADIST

Ayoung Kim

2019

In 2019, Ayoung Kim traveled to Mongolia to research its widespread animistic belief system towards land, mother rock, stones, and sacred caves that purify human guilt...

The 10 Best Booths at Art Basel in Miami Beach 2023
© » ARTSY

The 10 Best Booths at Art Basel in Miami Beach 2023 | Artsy Skip to Main Content Advertisement Art Market The 10 Best Booths at Art Basel in Miami Beach 2023 Maxwell Rabb Dec 7, 2023 6:23PM Interior view of Art Basel in Miami Beach, 2023...

Ben Dunne to Sell off €10m Art Collection - via Independent.ie
© » LARRY'S LIST

Businessman Ben Dunne is selling 39 paintings from his personal art collection, including John Lavery’s Sketch for Pro-Cathedral, Dublin 1922 — the iconic painting of the funeral of Michael Collins, who was shot dead a century ago tomorrow....

MervEspina and the Green Papaya Art Projects (via The Myanmar Times)
© » ARTS EQUATOR

MervEspina and the Green Papaya Art Projects (via The Myanmar Times) | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Articles September 22, 2018 With the support of Japan Foundation and collaboration of Myanm/Art, MervEspina, artist and researcher from Philippines talked about Green Papaya Art Projects whose essence can be rendered as ‘never ripe, never rotten’...

Michael Linares
© » KADIST

In this interview, Michael Linares talks about and from the “Museum of the Stick” a collection of objects with different uses that share the popular and ancient shape...

For Parts Not Working
© » LENS CULTURE

For Parts Not Working - Photographs by Lisa Murray | Interview by Sophie Wright | LensCulture Award winner For Parts Not Working ​Following a traumatic brain injury, Lisa Murray delved deep into the inner workings of her mind, camera in hand, in an attempt to piece back together her story...

London concept store APOC has created an alternative fashion gift list
© » WALLPAPER*

An alternative fashion gift list, courtesy of APOC store | Wallpaper Left, Invasive Modification...

Air Con: Who Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?
© » ARTS EQUATOR

Air Con: Who Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up? | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia ArtsEquator Viewpoints October 8, 2021 By Dhinesha Karthigesu (1,330 words, 5-minute read) Who do you want to be when you grow up? At the end of the play AIR CON , the character William (Nick Davis) asks the character Asif (Ryan Lee Bhaskaran) this question...

Le grand saut
© » SOCIETY

Cet article est à lire dans Society #212, disponible en kiosque du 17 au 30 aoÛt....

Embracing Uncertainty: In Defense of Question-Seeking Criticism
© » LITHUB

Embracing Uncertainty: In Defense of Question-Seeking Criticism ‹ Literary Hub Craft and Criticism Fiction and Poetry News and Culture Lit Hub Radio Reading Lists Book Marks CrimeReads About Log In Literary Hub Craft and Criticism Literary Criticism Craft and Advice In Conversation On Translation Fiction and Poetry Short Story From the Novel Poem News and Culture The Virtual Book Channel Film and TV Music Art and Photography Food Travel Style Design Science Technology History Biography Memoir Bookstores and Libraries Freeman’s Sports The Hub Lit Hub Radio Behind the Mic Beyond the Page The Cosmic Library Emergence Magazine Fiction/Non/Fiction First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing Just the Right Book Keen On Literary Disco The Literary Life with Mitchell Kaplan The Maris Review New Books Network Open Form Otherppl with Brad Listi So Many Damn Books Thresholds Tor Presents: Voyage Into Genre Windham-Campbell Prizes Podcast WMFA Reading Lists The Best of the Decade Book Marks Best Reviewed Books BookMarks Daily Giveaway CrimeReads True Crime The Daily Thrill CrimeReads Daily Giveaway Log In Via Phaidon Embracing Uncertainty: In Defense of Question-Seeking Criticism Helen Molesworth on the Uses and Functionality of the Arts and Humanities By Helen Molesworth December 11, 2023 “Why Is the Sky Blue and Other Questions Regarding Writing” was originally published in Documents , no...

Do You Need to Have Rich Pockets to Collect Art? Nope, Is the Answer - via Broadsheet
© » LARRY'S LIST

So, you want to build an art collection but don’t know where to start? If you feel intimidated by art or think you need to be cashed up, fear not...

Disability Arts – Notice us for our art, not our disability
© » ARTS EQUATOR

Disability Arts – Notice us for our art, not our disability | ArtsEquator Skip to content Isaac Lim outlines conversations in online disability arts panel discussion, Nothing About Us Without Us: Artists on crafting their voices ...