On the outskirts of civilization, where suburban man stumbles over nature, an untold drama is taking place. A relentless effort by present day frontiersman to tame and overcome the inhospitable California desert. Emigre's editor/designer Rudy VanderLans takes us to the heart of this spectacle, where suburban elements meet vacuous space, where dubious claims of commerce stand fragile against a harsh light, where contemporary dwellers impose incongruous notions of luxury on a magnificent wilderness landscape.
Supermarket captures the folly and beauty of this colorful drama in all its ambiguity with photographic spreads that come at us like film, taken from multiple angles, juxtaposed or duplicated in singularly bold symmetry. The iteration of the images so leveraged simulates a spatiality that transcends the ordinary two-dimensional page and challenges the traditional photo book format.
Supermarket takes us on a poetic journey through VanderLans's California, documenting our sometimes successful, sometimes futile attempt to transform an unfriendly environment into a bearable happy land. The author brings us inside this desert environment in small steps, taking us along the California coast heading south and then east through the built environment, setting the scene for our final destination.
184 pages, 9 x 12 inches, over 250 full color photographs, hardcover with dust wrapper.
I never heard him coming. I was out on a
dirt road somewhere near Pipes Canyon, trying to get a close-up
shot of some Jimson weed. It must have looked pretty curious,
me standing there in the middle of nowhere pointing my camera
at the ground. He was driving an olive green Ranchero and asked
what I was photographing. Startled but trying to act otherwise,
I told him I’d find out as soon as the photos were
developed, and realized immediately how silly that sounded. So
I asked if I was trespassing. Not to worry, he said with a big
grin on his face. He lived up the road and told me he and his
son had a construction company. They built desert homes. Sixty
four dollars per square foot. I asked him how he liked living
in the desert, and he said there’s nothing like it. They
had moved here from Los Angeles some twenty years ago and they
just loved the peace and quiet. Was I interested in buying a
house in the desert? I said maybe, but right now I just come out
here to photograph. Well, he said, if I ever changed my
mind, his wife was in the real estate business and could help
me find whatever I was looking for. He reached inside his glove
compartment and handed me her business card. Then he said he
had to go, so he wished me a nice day and warned me to be
careful of rattlesnakes, and slowly continued his bumpy drive
down the road. Serving the hi-desert for over 20 years, the
business card read. It had a nice ring to it, until I thought
about it.
