The Open Road: Photography and the American Road Trip

With more than 100 images, the Open Road includes the work of 19 photographers, on the move across North America, from the 1950s to today. Included in the exhibition are Robert Frank, Ed Ruscha, Garry Winogrand, Inge Morath, William Eggleston, Lee Friedlander, Joel Meyerowitz, Jacob Holdt, Stephen Shore, Bernard Plossu, Victor Burgin, Joel Sternfeld, Alec Soth, Todd Hido, Shinya Fujiwara, Ryan McGinley, Justine Kurland, and Taiyo Onorato and Nico Krebs.

After World War II, the American road trip began appearing prominently in literature, music, movies, and photography. While the myth of the American frontier had long engaged artists, and key photographers such as Walker Evans and Edward Weston made seminal trips through America in the 1930s and 1940s, many more photographers purposefully embarked on trips during the post-World War II era in order to create work about America or better understand their place in it.

The Open Road considers the photographic road trip, from Robert Frank—whose 1955 road trip resulted in The Americans (1958)—to present day, as a genre in and of itself. This is the first exhibition to explore the story of the American photographic road trip—one of the most distinct, important, and appealing themes of the medium. The exhibition presents the story of nineteen photographers for whom the American road was muse. Presented in chronological order, the featured artists and road trips represent the evolution of American car culture, the idea of the open road, and how photographers embraced the subject of America in order reflect on place, time, and self.

Curator David Campany is one of the best-known and most accessible writers on photography. His books include Walker Evans: The Magazine Work (2013), Jeff Wall: Picture for Women (2011), Photography and Cinema (2008), and Art and Photography (2003). His essays have appeared in numerous books and he contributes regularly to Aperture, Frieze, Photoworks, and Oxford Art Journal. Campany lives and works in London, where he is a reader in photography at the University of Westminster.

Denise Wolff is senior editor at Aperture and is known for her work with both contemporary and historic photography. Prior to Aperture, she was the commissioning editor for photography at Phaidon Press. Throughout her career, she has had the opportunity to work on many beautiful books, including monographs with such established photographers as Roger Ballen, Mary Ellen Mark, Martin Parr, and Stephen Shore, as well as first books, retrospectives, and large survey anthologies on a variety of subjects—from portraiture to photographic albums.

Exhibition overview from museum website

Whether you go or not, the companion publication, The Open Road: Photography and the American Roadtrip, considers the photographic road trip as a genre in and of itself, and presents the story of photographers for whom the American road is muse. 

The book features David Campany's introduction to the genre and 18 chapters presented chronologically, each exploring one American road trip in depth through a portfolio of images and informative texts. This volume highlights some of the most important bodies of work made on the road, from The Americans to the present day.