Product Description

"Joshua Lutz takes the New Topographics of Adams, Shore, and Sternfeld into its current era of urban sprawl." (The New Yorker)
Just two miles west of Manhattan lies the Meadowlands, a 32-square-mile stretch of sweeping wilderness that evokes morbid fantasies of Mafia hits and buried remains. Development has claimed two-thirds of the region, making way for scores of landfills, motels, and gas stations. The growth of poorly planned communities and the impending construction of Xanadu, a five million-square-foot entertainment and retail complex, threaten to change these lands forever.
Under the pretext of searching for Jimmy Hoffa, photographer Joshua Lutz began exploring these lonesome wetlands ten years ago; what started as a strict documentary project soon evolved into something else entirely. Meadowlands, Lutz’s first monograph, is a compelling portrait of this vast and stunning landscape, whose unspoiled area is quickly dwindling. The Meadowlands are a place of solitude, a place you pass through on your way somewhere more inviting—and yet, within it all resides a quiet beauty, a glimmer of hope, a hidden potential for renewal and rebirth.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #569205 in Books
• Published on: 2008-06-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 108 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. The photographs, taken over a span of 10 years, in Lutz's debut monograph remarkably reveal the swampy, 32-mile area that separates New Jersey from... the rest of the United States of America. Lutz's fascination with the heavily polluted Meadowlands is contagious, and his compositions gild the seedy motels and impassive empty lots with a lush, despairing beauty. The evocative and moody portraits of drifters and the disenchanted are unforgettable; Lutz's images are powerfully affecting but never exaggerated or disingenuous. A stunning first collection. (Aug.)
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About the Author
Joshua Lutz received his MFA in photography from the International Center of Photography and Bard College in 2005. In 2004, he received Best Editorial awards from both Photo District News and Communication Arts, and was also named one of PDN’s top 30 emerging photographers. His work has been featured in The New Yorker, Harper’s, The New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, ArtNews, and Time, and he has exhibited at the Art Directors Club and the International Center of Photography in New York.
Robert Sullivan is the author of such books as Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City’s Most Unwanted Inhabitants and Cross Country: Fifteen Years and 90,000 Miles on the Roads and Interstates of America with Lewis and Clark, a Lot of Bad Motels, a Moving Van, Emily Post, Jack Kerouac, My Wife, My Mother-in-Law, Two Kids, and Enough Coffee to Kill an Elephant (Bloomsbury, 2004 and 2006). He was born in New York City and currently lives in Brooklyn with his wife and their two children.

Customer Reviews

Mesmerizing!
I find myself totally captivated by Joshua Lutz's book Meadowlands. I experience a range of emotions as I visit each page...leaving me intrigued to know more about this anachronistic corner of the world. Lutz's photos are precise yet magical, and beckon one to sit still and pay attention. The unspoken story lingers in my mind long after I close the cover.

Beautful book!
A fantastic book that features beautiful and haunting images about a very unique place. I have been a fan of Joshua Lutz's work for quite a while, and this book surely did not disappoint.

They're out to kill it, Arthur
The fifty photos in this book represent several years of personal assignments through Meadowlands by Joshua Lutz. What makes this little corner of nowhere so fascinating is the mix of toxic dumps, suburbs, heavy industry, retail logistic centers, entertainment and leisure complexes and every kind of transportation: road; rail; water and air all getting along in a reasonably definable, thirty mile long, chunk of New Jersey opposite NYC.

As such it ought to yield some intriguing photos and there are some really stunning images here but also, because of the way Lutz visualized his book, some also-rans too. The problem is that none of the photos are captioned (there are no page numbers either) and I read on Jorg Colberg's weblog, where he interviews Lutz, the photographer's thoughts for this: 'It's one of the reasons why I don't caption or title the images. I like the idea that people can bring whatever baggage they come with to these images and not be bogged down by the actual specifics'.

I understand, though don't agree with, the thinking and Lutz can appreciate that I have 'baggage' about some of these photos. For example, one photo, a close-up of part of a rather scummy bathtub seems totally out of place. Was it photographed in Meadowlands? Probably but what is the significance. Another photo shows a clothed man laying face down in a stream surrounded by foliage, he seems dead, was he? There is a photo of a couple in period costumes sitting outside at a table, were they: part of a movie or at a fancy dress party? It just seems too easy to leave the viewer (book buyer) hanging with their own interpretation of photos that cry out for an explanation.

With only fifty photos in the book I was disappointed that several are similar to the ones I've described but having looked through the pages a few times they, thankfully, don't spoil the enjoyment of the remaining excellent photos. The cover image of three WMCA/WNYC transmitter towers on the Belleville Turnpike, standing in water by a super-highway with some scrubland seemed an apt choice. Inside there are more great landscape shots of motels, scrap yards, industrial and commercial sites and the Meadowlands natural landscape of tidal marshes. One thing that does make the book work is its huge size. The photos are one to a spread and fourteen by eleven and a half inches (printed with a 175 screen) and this allows a much greater appreciation of the detail in so many of them.

This is not the first book to capture the unusual nature of the area. Photographer Ray Mortenson did a similar 1983 book with thirty-seven black and white photos, predictably called Meadowland though he only concentrated on industrial landscapes. Both books, in their own way, really do capture the feel of this gritty part of the Garden State.

***SEE SOME INSIDE PAGES by clicking 'customer images' under the cover.