Maine

In 2023, Swedish photographer Gerry Johansson roamed the state of Maine with a Rolleiflex, curious to make new pictures in a region of America he first encountered in the work of Paul Strand five decades ago — he found Strand’s views of New England “boring” at the time — and also wondering, “Why is American photography so focused on the west?” Johansson’s Maine echoes the formal restraint of his earlier books, notably American Winter, Spanish Summer, Meloni Meloni, and Pontiac, sequencing nearly 200 black-and-white duotone photographs alphabetically by their oddly poetic northeastern town names (Bath, Friendship, Purgatory, etc). Somehow, as in all Johansson’s work, none of the Maine pictures draws more attention than any other, and the flawless and playful compositions never seem to repeat — Johansson’s endlessly inventive arrangements of architecture and landscape orient the viewer in a specific geographic and cultural place while generously sharing his way of seeing, ambling, and thinking with a camera.