Danny Lyon: Junk: American in Ruins

(Hardback)

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Lyon's Junk: America in Ruins is a book of pictures of 86 American cars, mostly from the 1950s and 1960s, made in the junkyards of the western United States.

When he was 21, Lyon's father passed on to him a 1953 Oldsmobile. He discovered the ecstasy of speeding along Georgia highways during the civil rights movement, with red dirt fields of peanuts and cotton flying by. In the excitement of driving, he realized his own mortality. Lyon's Junk: America in Ruins is a book of pictures of 86 American cars, mostly from the 1950s and 1960s, made in the junkyards of the western United States. The pictures were taken in Nebraska, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Oklahoma. This is a work of pure visual photography. The premise behind the work is that many things-sculptures, monuments, buildings-take on a new and added beauty as they deteriorate and become ruins: a certain pathos is added to their original beauty. This is true of the automobiles in this series: once the beloved machines of people and families who owned and drove them, they now evoke a terrible beauty and sadness.

Author Bio

Brooklyn-born photographer Danny Lyon (born 1942) is one of the most influential photographers of the last six decades. His immersive and groundbreaking works include The Bikeriders (1968), The Destruction of Lower Manhattan (1969) and his recent memoir This Is My Life I'm Talking About.