Commonplace

Switzerland-based photographer Oliver Lang investigates in 'Commonplace' the urban development structures of the new residential districts springing up on the East Coast of the USA. Rather than taking a purely documentary approach, he tries to reveal the underlying social and political trends and mechanisms at work in these emerging or recently built neighborhoods. »Commonplace« stands on the one hand for common land, the town »commons,« but on the other hand also signifies an everyday occurrence or saying, a platitude. The double meaning has been appended here to a collection of pictures which in a jarring way are at once beautiful, superficial and artificial.