11 march 2024, Wouter van den Eijkel
Last chance: How Gerry Johansson captures the beauty of anonymous places - "I don't do anything mysterious"
Some photographers create a handful of iconic images during their careers. They manage to capture that one moment, that one gesture or that look to be forever remembered. Others create a series that is the undisputed highlight of their body of work, published in one or two books that have become part of the photography canon. But what if you're working on a body of work that doesn't consist of photos of landmarks or highlights, but is entirely populated by interchangeable, anonymous places alphabetically arranged in books that all look the same? What story do you have to tell then? We asked Swedish photographer Gerry Johansson.
At Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen, work from Johansson's latest books Coast to Coast and Spanish Summer are currently on display, along with work by Jenia Fridlyand and Penti Sammallahti.
Gerry Johansson, Sidney, Nebraska, USA, 2018, Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen
Johansson is now 78, but he's as eager to travel and as productive as ever. Last fall saw the release of Coast to Coast, a slim booklet that deviates in many ways from typical Johansson books. While his hefty classics like America, Sweden, Deutschland and the recent Spanish Summer are, apart from the colophon, textless, Coast to Coast contains a short biographical reflection by Johansson about time spent in the United States.
In 1963, at the age of 18, he spent a year in New Jersey with family friends. The idea was to find a job, but that proved difficult. He lingered for days in Manhattan with his camera, photographing street scenes. He also joined The Village Camera Club, which was a great place to meet other photographers. Twenty years later, he returned for a trip from the west to the east coast – coast to coast – and visited the who's who of American photography at the time. In L.A., he chauffeured Gary Winogrand for a few days and met Robert Adams, visited Henry Wessel Jr. in San Francisco and Egglestone in Memphis. Johansson doesn't call it a formative trip because he had already achieved success with his work. "At that time, I had already had an exhibition at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. In hindsight, it was a kind of retrospective, because after that, my interests began to change."
Gerry Johansson, Sidney, Montgomery Alabama, 1993, Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen
Johansson's appreciation for the photographs he took during his trip across the U.S. changed over the years. "When I returned to Sweden, I first thought that the individual photos did not show enough coherence, but I am now much more satisfied with them." The trip also served as a blueprint for his later work in many ways. People disappeared from the picture and the emphasis shifted to landscape photography and everyday objects: houses, shops, churches, factories, cars, tires, trees, anything could become the subject of Johansson's work. Always photographed with a medium format camera and always in perfect composition.
The latter became Johansson's trademark. Wherever he sets up, the world always looks about the same. "Because the objects I photograph are anonymous, a strong composition is needed," explains Johansson, who is trained as a graphic artist. "I don't do anything mysterious."
Johansson's approach to work has not fundamentally changed since then. He travels to a city, region or country and photographs whatever catches his eye. "The landscape is a reflection of life and what people make of it" is how summarises Johansson his vision. A clear concept that is applicable everywhere. For his book Deutschland (2012), for example, he divided the Federal Republic of Germany into nine sections and made numerous trips. According to Johansson, this approach was logical because Germany is "not a very large country". For Spanish Summer (2022), he made trips to the middle of Spain. This type of trip takes about three weeks. "When I'm on the road, I work very efficiently and keep office hours from 8 to 5."
The choice of destination usually originates from an affinity with a country. "For example, as a child, I had a lot of German toys, while the U.S. attracted me because of jazz and MAD magazine. On the other hand, this is not set in stone. I knew nothing about Ulaanbaatar (capital of Mongolia) when I photographed it; it just seemed interesting to me."
Gerry Johansson, Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen
While Johansson may consider his approach to work to be anything but mysterious, the effect of his eye for composition is significant. Some make you smile, like the billboard that blends perfectly into the background in Spanish Summer. Other times, you may think that the perfect composition subtly ridicules the relatively insignificant subject, like the row houses in Pontiac (Michigan). The inhabitant may be proud of his possession, but seen through Johansson's viewfinder, that pride becomes the epitome of bourgeoisie.
Gerry Johansson, Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen
Add to that the uniform execution of all his books – brown cover, square black and white photos arranged alphabetically by place name – and you get the idea that individuality does not matter for Johansson. He only arranges what he sees. "This approach began with my book America (1998), publishers didn't like the images. Yet, I was keen on using the images, so a graphic designer friend came up with the concept. It works very well for me, partly because I only show what catches my eye. Sometimes you may find a small series within a book, but often also a single shot of a particular place. In fact, I offer the viewer ideas about what the U.S. might look like, but I have no idea if that's correct."
In other words, the photos are no more than what they are: perfect compositions of the most anonymous objects and thus diametrically opposed to the attention paid in our visual culture to the exception, the exceptional, the evidently beautiful. It also explains why Johansson is especially beloved among connoisseurs and collectors. Photography critic Jörg Colberg recently summarised Johansson's approach as follows: "The world isn't beautiful per se. The world simply exists and it couldn't care one bit about what we think about it. It's up to us to view this world any which way we want (or are able to – the two aren't necessarily the same). If you make the decision to find beauty in the world, you can. One way to do so – Johansson's – is to embrace the notion that whatever beauty exists, it's ours, the one we construct." Asked if he shares this analysis, Johansson dryly replied, "He's on to something."
Gerry Johansson, Medina de Campo, Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen
Observing with works by Jenia Fridlyand, Penti Sammallahti and Gerry Johansson can be seen at Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen in Amsterdam until 16 March.
