Kris Graves - Hatje Cantz

A two-panel image showing a long, steep staircase ascending a large, grassy mound under a blue sky with white clouds. The left panel shows a straight-on view from the bottom of the stairs, while the right panel shows a wider, angled view of the staircase on the side of the hill.

A wide shot of the Confederate Memorial Carving on the granite face of Stone Mountain, Georgia. The massive bas-relief sculpture depicts three Confederate leaders on horseback. A line of green trees is visible at the base of the mountain.

A Black man seen from behind, wearing a colorful striped t-shirt and jeans, stands on a large rock at the edge of a wide body of water. He looks out across the water towards a tree-covered shoreline in the distance under a blue sky with scattered white clouds.

An eye-level, panoramic photograph of a large cemetery with countless tombstones and bare trees covering rolling hills, with the hazy New York City skyline visible in the distance under a gray, overcast sky.

A diptych of contrasting scenes. The left photo shows a city street at night, with a woman and two children walking under a large, glowing red neon sign for Liquor Cocktails. The right photo shows a family in formal attire walking through a modern, concrete plaza in bright daylight.

A diptych of two color photographs. On the left, a young Black girl wearing a helmet with a tall, spiraling blue and white balloon on it sits on top of a washing machine in a laundromat. On the right, a Black woman stands with her back to the camera, looking out a high-rise window at a lit-up cityscape at night.

An excerpt from a book or essay displayed as white serif text on a black background. The text is arranged in several distinct blocks and discusses the history of slavery, Thomas Jefferson, the University of Virginia, the lives of Isabella and William Gibbons, and the Lost Cause mythology.

A black background with several paragraphs of white, justified text scattered across the composition. The text is an essay discussing photography, American history, slavery, Confederate monuments, and the Black experience, with references to figures like James Baldwin. The author is identified as John Edwin Mason.

A two-panel image. On the left, on a black background, is the title THE CAROLINAS and explanatory text about the Meriwether monument. On the right is a black-and-white photo of the monument's inscription, which reads: IN LIFE HE EXEMPLIFIED THE HIGHEST IDEAL OF ANGLO-SAXON CIVILIZATION. BY HIS DEATH HE ASSURED TO THE CHILDREN OF HIS BELOVED LAND THE SUPREMACY OF THAT IDEAL. AS HIS FLAME OF LIFE WAS QUENCHED, IT LIT THE BLAZE OF VICTORY.

A black and white collage of ten photographs showing historical buildings, monuments, and statues in South Carolina. Each image includes a caption explaining its history, with many related to the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the Confederacy. Pictured sites include the Charleston City Market and the South Carolina State House.

A two-panel image. On the left, a black background with white text listing the states TENNESSEE, KENTUCKY, and WEST VIRGINIA, along with a caption. On the right, a black and white photograph of a memorial consisting of cannonballs stacked into a large pyramid on a stone base, situated in a grassy area with trees behind it.

A black and white collage of twelve different photographs showing Confederate monuments and memorials throughout Georgia. Each image is accompanied by a block of text detailing the monument's name, location, and historical information on a black background.

A two-panel image. The left panel has a black background with the word ALABAMA and a caption. The right panel is a black and white photograph of five large sculptures completely covered in light-colored tarps, standing like shrouded figures on a plaza during construction.

A two-page spread from a book titled American Monuments. The left page contains text, and the right page shows a photograph of a stone monument pedestal in a grassy area with trees. The statue is gone, and the pedestal is covered in red and black spray-painted graffiti. A separate, graffiti-covered block of stone rests on the ground in front of it.

A collage of three photos showing a bronze statue of a seated man splattered with colorful paint. The left and right images are close-ups of the paint on the statue's face and body. The center image shows the full monument, with graffiti including the letters BLM spray-painted on its stone base.

A tall monument on a grassy mound is completely covered by a large, bright blue tarp. In the background, a historic brick courthouse with a clock tower stands across the street under a partly cloudy sky.

Kris Graves

Privileged Mediocrity

€ 82.00

VAT included. Shipping costs will be calculated at checkout

English

April 2023, 174 Pages, 255 Photos

Hardcover

248mm x 302mm

ISBN: 978-3-7757-5477-4

HATJE CANTZ VERLAG
Mommsenstr. 27
10629 Berlin
Germany
E-Mail: contact@hatjecantz.de

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| The Infrastructure of Power

Mixing seemingly deadpan architectural portraiture with poetically frozen moments of daily life, photographer Kris Graves reveals the living history of racism and elitism in the United States. In Privileged Mediocrity, Graves shows us both the brutality and beauty of American life. Each image of a person or a place tells its own complex, moving story and cumulatively captures a longing for the unfulfilled promise of a true democracy. Racism can be seen in infrastructure and planning nationwide, from the human and built environment impacts of redlining and unsustainable public housing, to spaces where homeless communities are able to only temporarily exist before they are dismantled. This book seeks to explore the subtleties of the built realities and the planned experience across racial, class, and gender lines. It explores how racism, capitalism, and power have shaped the country and how that can be seen and experienced in everyday life.

An exclusive edition is also available for this publication.

KRIS GRAVES (*1982, New York) is a photographer and publisher based in New York and California. Using a mix of conceptual and documentary practices, he photographs the impact of systemic unfairness on the built environment. Graves received his BFA in Visual Arts from S.U.N.Y. Purchase College and has been published and exhibited globally, including MoMA, New York; Getty Institute, L. A.; and the National Portrait Gallery in London.