Working America

From Sept. 5 to Oct. 20, the exhibition will feature the photography of artist Sam Comen, who sought to capture and celebrate working Americans as icons of the American Dream.

Los Angeles-based photographer, Sam Comen (b.1980) has long focused on themes of American identity, community-building, immigration, labor, and social justice in his photography. In his series Working America, which began in 2017, Comen considers immigrant-Americans and first-generation Americans through the lens of the small and skilled trades, re-engaging with the historical portrait approach that masters of photography such as Eugène Atget (French, 1857–1927), August Sander (German, 1876–1964), Dorothea Lange (American, 1895–1965), and Irving Penn (American, 1917–2009) used to investigate identity, vocation, and status of their generations.

Through these reverential portraits and accompanying quotes drawn from conversations with his subjects, Comen both celebrates and questions the ubiquitous American “bootstrap” narrative that self-motivation and hard work leads to economic independence, inclusion, and happiness.

"Walking and driving every day in my native Los Angeles, I look around and see an economically thriving microcosm of a multiracial, immigrant America. The Armenian American shoemaker, the Korean American tailor, the Mexican American machine operator working the late shift in the last zipper factory left in the country. As the great-grandson of Eastern European Jewish immigrants, I can’t help but think of this as a contemporary analog to my forebears’ late nineteenth century experience in Chicago and Boston."
–Sam Comen

...as the nation entered into a second year of pandemic isolation, Comen shifted his focus. He began to document workers that had been deemed “essential”—still, many of them immigrant Americans and first-generation Americans—who were thrust to the front lines and asked to keep on the job while the rest of society sheltered at home. This series, separately titled The Longest Shift, honors workers’ contributions and resilience in a time of crisis, and examines the economic and social forces that were exacerbated by the pandemic. Collectively, these two bodies of work offer a meditation on American belonging and American becoming. The artist invites viewers to reflect upon their own families’ origin stories, to appreciate the values of work and service, and to consider how they might aid their fellow countrymen with the numerous challenges they face in light of racism and xenophobia.

About the artist
As a native Californian, Sam Comen has used his home state as a muse throughout his career and often looks to the places that define us for inspiration. He has long focused on themes of American identity, community-building, immigration, democracy, and social justice in his photographic work. His portrait Jesus Sera, Dishwasher (2019) from the Working America series was awarded Second Prize in the prestigious triennial The Outwin: American Portraiture Today at the National Portrait Gallery in 2019, and his work was on view in there in the 2017–18 exhibition, The Sweat of Their Face: Portraying American Workers. His photographs are collected by the Library of Congress, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and private collectors, and he is regularly commissioned by brands and publications internationally.

The above description is from The Programming Guide for Working America ©2022 ExhibitsUSA, a national program of Mid-America Arts Alliance

Photo: Sam Comen, Chris Capizzi and Jenny Yang, Booksellers from the series Working America, 2019; Digital photograph, 36 x 24 inches;Courtesy of the artist.

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