Katherine Avenue

This book brings together three of Larry Sultan’s best known series: “Pictures from Home”, “The Valley” and “Homeland”, all mainly made in the San Fernando Valley, California, where the artist grew up. “Pictures from Home“ is a survey of his parents life over the course of a long period; “The Valley“ deals with the Californian pornographic industry which operates out of the suburbs of the region; and “Homeland“, his late series of landscapes which appear idyllic at first sight but which are fractured by the troubling presence of Mexican day-labourers. In all of his photographs Sultan is dealing with the private, political and social aspects of the “american dream” – a dream he locates somewhere between utopia and dystopia. This publication accompanies an exhibition at the kestnergesellschaft, Hannover.