|
 |
|
Home Tom Arndt’s Minnesota Tom Arndt PRESS: |
|
|
A visual tribute to the people of Minnesota from a renowned photographer For forty years, acclaimed photographer and native Minnesotan Tom Arndt has been documenting the faces of Minnesota with unparalleled skill and candor. In Home, Arndt presents what he calls “a poem to my home state” through a series of poignant and compelling photographs that highlight the unique character of Minnesota. From Franklin Avenue in Minneapolis to Main Street in Willmar, from carnival workers at the state fair to drag racing fans in Anoka, and from small-town street dances to the Aquatennial torchlight parade, Home captures everyday life in the North Star State. By allowing people’s lives to speak for themselves, Arndt’s photographs reveal the often forgotten moments that build common bridges across a diverse and ever-changing state. Enriched with more than 100 photographs, along with a personal and insightful preface by the author and a foreword by Garrison Keillor, Home is a landmark testimony to the people and culture of Minnesota. Arndt approaches his subjects—he would call them neighbors—with honesty, empathy, and humanity, and what emerges is a portrait of Minnesota that is at once achingly familiar and surprisingly new. “Arndt has a generous spirit and creates images of tremendous empathy. Home is completely accessible, a book of local history for everyone who’s ever groaned at having to sit through a slide show of vacation photos with no people in them. Arndt is all about the people; as with an album of family photos, we smile at the familiarity of his subjects while noting the telling period details that creep in around the edges of the frame. This is a collection to visit and revisit for its documentation and celebration of the real Minnesota, the Minnesota we know and love.” —Twin Cities Daily Planet “Forty years of Minnesota in gorgeous black and white.” —Star Tribune “Arndt’s observations convey more than is seen at first glance, drawing the viewer back again to delve more deeply into the images. Home will resonate with anyone admiring fine photography—doubly so if Minnesota is their home too.” —Lavender “Arndt has entered into a pact with his subjects, a mutual understanding about this Minnesota life—honest and affectionate without being sentimental or cloyingly romanticized. Each of these portraits is tied to a specific recognizable time and place: diners, parlors, drag strips and sports arenas, city sidewalks or the County Fair. The details of these settings are wonderful, and we could happily dwell on them alone. But these photographs are, most essentially, about the people who inhabit these places (often stoically, sometimes joyfully, always proudly) and call them home.” —B&W Magazine “Midway through my first look at Home, agape came to mind among cascading layers of emotions and thoughts. I’ve never used that word in conversation or print (unless for some long forgotten college paper) before now. Rachmonis, yes—for you Lutherans, Yiddish for a broad sympathy, a feeling for the other: love, well of course, everyone knows what love is, even true love. Without true love there would be no Great American Songbook or rock n’ roll or opera. If you have a few lingering questions on this ancient topic, take a slow look at this book. Tom Arndt loves people; he loves each and every one of us unconditionally. Photographs prove nothing, but his photographs bear witness to this claim.” —Photo Eye “Viewing Arndt’s photographs is like reading a book, very slowly, isolating and focusing on each word, one at a time. But, in the end there are sentences, paragraphs, stories, and meaning.” —mnartists.org “Spanning 40 years, these moments freeze a lost time, a lost Minneapolis, and, when Arndt visits rural farming relatives with camera in hand, a lost way of life. The best part of the book comes at the end (although Garrison Keillor contributes a nice forward; the men are pals), when the photographer gives a little insight into the making of each photo.” —MinnPost.com “By allowing people’s lives to speak for themselves, Arndt’s photographs reveal the often forgotten moments that build common bridges across a diverse and ever-changing state.” —The Photograph Collector Tom Arndt has been documenting his home state of Minnesota for more than forty years. His photographs are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. His first book, Men in America, coincided with an exhibition at the National Museum of American Art. He lives in St. Paul. Garrison Keillor is the host and writer of A Prairie Home Companion and host of the daily program The Writer's Almanac. He is the author of sixteen books, including Lake Wobegon Days, The Book of Guys, and Homegrown Democrat. His syndicated column "The Old Scout" is published in newspapers across the country. George Slade is a Minnesota-born photography historian and curator. He received a 2007 Arts Writers Grant from the Creative Capital/Andy Warhol Foundation to support his forthcoming book, Looking Homeward: Notes on Photographic Minnesota. 192 pages | 157 b&w photos | 11 1/4 x 11 1/4 | 2009 Foreword Garrison Keillor Home Photographer’s Notes |
||
