Lee Friedlander

Lee Friedlander focuses on the alienation of modern life, composing unusual, surreal images out of everyday scenes. His photographs from the 1950s and 1960s often appear empty and isolating. In the early 1960s Friedlander made a series of photographs of television sets playing in empty living rooms and hotel rooms. Philadelphia, 1961, from this series, shows a detached face glowing on a screen in a vacant room. The chairs in the room face away from the TV, causing the viewer to question who, if anyone, is watching.

Lee Friedlander’s works are both impersonal and intimate. Although people are found in many of his photographs, they usually play a supporting role. Friedlander’s larger conceptual message is of his own personal perspective. In Shadow, New York City, he incorporates his own shadow into the photograph, an unorthodox practice at the time. The prominent shadow causes the viewer to take the place of the photographer as he closely follows a stranger down the streets of New York City.