Stepping from the quiet streets of Charlottenburg into Buchmann Galerie feels like a time journey from 2026 Berlin to the dusty roads of late-1970s America. On the Berlin floor of Apartment No:26 this month, we open our windows to one of contemporary photography’s living legends: Joel Sternfeld.
In 1978, with an enormous 8×10-inch large-format camera in hand and carrying the weight of the Vietnam War, Nixon’s resignation, and a series of assassinations, Sternfeld set out in search of one thing: beauty. What he found, however, was the irony, tragedy, and social fault lines lurking just beneath that beauty. The American Prospects series is today not only a turning point in photographic history, but also a visual diary of America’s unending reckoning with itself.
New Color Photography: The Power of Color
Sternfeld was one of the pioneers of the “New Color Photography” movement, which fundamentally changed the perception that color photography lacked artistic seriousness. For him, color was never mere decoration; it was the heart of composition, the strongest layer of narrative.
Technical Precision: The 8×10-inch large-format camera lends the photographs both documentary sharpness and painterly sensitivity. At this scale, even the most banal scene reveals the sublime.
Silent Tableaux: Sternfeld’s frames do not shout; they quietly draw the viewer in. A shopping-mall parking lot or a roadside fire becomes, in his framing, a resonating chamber of society.
Beauty or Tragedy?
The artist views the American landscape not merely as nature, but as evidence of human intervention, ecological tension, and class conflict. This exhibition at Buchmann Galerie presents Sternfeld’s iconic works alongside previously unpublished images from this vast body of work.
“I had a desperate need to find that America still accepted beauty in its landscapes. Fifty years later, that need still exists, but satisfying it has become much more difficult.” — Joel Sternfeld
In Sternfeld’s photographs, politics lies just beneath the surface. A Wet ‘n Wild water park or a quiet street scene remains suspended in the uncanny gap between the promises of the American Dream and the harshness of reality.
Exhibition Agenda and Impact
Joel Sternfeld is not only an artist but also a theorist who has taught at Sarah Lawrence College. His writing spans a wide range—from Ruskin’s concept of the “Sublime” to the practice of Stephen Shore.
This is Sternfeld’s seventh solo show at Buchmann Galerie. If you are in Berlin in February 2026, do not miss this silent autopsy of the American landscape. Standing before the photographs, ask yourself: Is what we see truly beauty, or flawlessly concealed wreckage?
