Photograph, colour on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Tate American Fund
Collection
American Power
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/mitch-epstein-13597" aria-label="More by Mitch Epstein" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Mitch Epstein</a>
Gavin Coal Power Plant Cheshire Ohio
Lent by the American Fund for the Tate Gallery, courtesy of the North American Acquisitions Committee 2011
architecture
Cheshire, Gavin Coal Power Plant
chimney
cities, towns, villages (non-UK)
commerce
countries and continents
ecology
emotions, concepts and ideas
energy
formal qualities
government and politics
history
industrial
industrial society
natural phenomena
photographic
places
political power
politics and society
politics: September 11 attacks, 11 Sep 2001
pollution
power
power station
smoke
social comment
society
universal concepts
USA, Ohio
<p>Epstein has worked with colour photography since the 1970s, when this medium was rarely used in fine art. The American Power series began in 2003, after a newspaper asked him to photograph the town of Cheshire, Ohio. The American Electric Power Company decided to pay townspeople to leave so that it could expand its power plant. Some residents refused to move, so Epstein photographed the power station and their homes. The commission led Epstein to carry out a wider project between 2003 and 2008.</p><p><em>Gallery label, August 2019</em></p>
paper print photograph colour
21 April 2011 – 9 April 2012
2012-04-09
21 April 2011 – 9 April 2012
2012-04-09
2011-04-21
Tate Modern (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/
2011-04-21
New Documentary Forms
Collection based display
1 August 2019 – 23 April 2023
2023-04-23
1 August 2019 – 23 April 2023
2023-04-23
2019-08-01
Tate Modern (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/
2019-08-01
Mitch Epstein and Marwan Rechmaoui
Collection based display
Gavin Coal Power Plant, Cheshire, Ohio
unconfirmed: 1143 × 1419 mm
Lent by the <a href="/search?gid=999999976" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">American Fund for the Tate Gallery</a>, courtesy of the North American Acquisitions Committee 2011
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<p>
<i>Gavin Coal Power Plant, Cheshire, Ohio 2003</i> is one of five large colour photographs in Tate’s collection from a series entitled <i>American Power</i>. They are all C-prints of the same size, 1143 x 1473 mm, and were printed by the artist in New York in editions of six plus two artist’s proofs. Mitch Epstein is an American photographer who has been working with colour photography since the 1970s. His work is known for its formal complexity and its study of socio-political subjects. <i>American Power </i>is regarded as one of his most important groups of work. It reflects on different ideas of power, and power’s connection to the American landscape, climate and political culture.</p>
<p>Epstein began work on <i>American Power</i> following a commission by the New York Times in 2003 to photograph the town of Cheshire, Ohio. The American Electric Power Company had decided to pay residents of the town to leave so it could expand its power plant there; however, some residents were refusing to accept the money and leave their homes, so Epstein photographed the power station and these people’s houses. The commission led Epstein to carry out a wider project and he worked on the photographs for <i>American Power</i> between 2003 and 2008. He later wrote:</p>
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</p><blockquote>I began to make pictures of the production and consumption of energy in the United States. I wanted to photograph the relationship between American society and the American landscape, and energy was the lynchpin ... For the next five years, I travelled the country making photographs at or near energy production sites: coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, hydroelectric, fuel cell, wind, and solar.</blockquote>
<blockquote>(‘Afterword’ in Epstein 2009.)</blockquote>
<p>In time, Epstein’s series began to include other kinds of images of power – for instance, photographs made in the wake of Hurricane Katrina (for example, see <i>Biloxi, Mississippi 2005</i>, Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/epstein-biloxi-mississippi-2005-p20368" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P20368</span></a>), and an image of an electric chair.</p>
<p>As the series grew, and as Epstein travelled the country, he encountered various obstacles to his project. In the wake of the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, local police were often sceptical about the presence of a photographer making images of power stations, and he was arrested several times. ‘With my new project’, he wrote, ‘I am pressed up against the edge of America’s fundamental freedoms. The open society that I took for granted for 33 years is no longer a given.’ (Epstein 2006, p.221).</p>
<p>Although he did not set out as an environmental activist, Epstein’s series indicates a concern with the impact of America’s consumption of energy on the social and geographical landscape. ‘These pictures question the human conquest of nature at any cost’, he wrote, troubled not just by the ‘environmental indifference’ he encountered while making the project, but also by the ‘security excesses’ and ‘corporate avarice’ it revealed (‘Afterword’ in Epstein 2009). He summed up the project saying, ‘With “American Power” I am trying to find and convey truth about how we Americans live, what we want, and what it costs to get it’ (Epstein 2006, p.221). The series is an examination of the energy industry in the first decade of the twenty-first century, of the connections between this industry and American nationalism, and of the consequences of American power for the country’s environment and personal freedoms. The series was published as a book by Steidl in 2009; reviewing the publication for the magazine <i>Artforum</i>, the art historian Michael Fried applauded Epstein’s work for its ‘seamless blend of understated environmental critique, unapologetic mastery of the photographic medium, and formal intelligence’ (Fried 2010, p.43).</p>
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<i>Gavin Coal Power Plant, Cheshire, Ohio 2003</i> shows smoke pouring from two chimneys into a grey sky. The photograph was shot from a position near the bases of the two chimneys pointing upwards to the sky. Epstein framed the image so that only the very tops of the chimneys appear at the upper edge of the image and the smoke appears to pour downwards rather than up into the sky. This illusion emphasises the threatening impact of the billowing clouds of pollution. However, Epstein has created an image that both attracts and repulses. The near symmetrical composition of the image is formally elegant, and the smoke clouds have an abstract beauty. It is possible that at some level the image makes reference to the famous news images of smoke billowing from the twin towers of the World Trade Center following the September 11th attacks, in the aftermath of which <i>American Power</i> was made.</p>
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<b>Further reading</b>
<br/>Mitch Epstein, <i>Work</i> 1973–2006, Göttingen 2006.<br/>Mitch Epstein, <i>American Power</i>, Göttingen 2009.<br/>Michael Fried, ‘Living in America: Michael Fried on Mitch Epstein’s “American Power”’, <i>Artforum</i>,<i> </i>January 2010, p.43.</p>
<p>Mark Godfrey<br/>September 2010</p>
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Summary
2012-08-02T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
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<p>Epstein has worked with colour photography since the 1970s, when this medium was rarely used in fine art. The American Power series began in 2003, after a newspaper asked him to photograph the town of Cheshire, Ohio. The American Electric Power Company decided to pay townspeople to leave so that it could expand its power plant. Some residents refused to move, so Epstein photographed the power station and their homes. The commission led Epstein to carry out a wider project between 2003 and 2008.</p>
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Display caption
2019-08-09T00:00:00
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DISPLAY_CAPTION
architecture Cheshire, Gavin Coal Power Plant chimney cities, towns, villages (non-UK) commerce countries and continents ecology emotions, concepts and ideas energy formal qualities government and politics history industrial industrial society natural phenomena photographic places political power politics and society politics: September 11 attacks, 11 Sep 2001 pollution power power station smoke social comment society universal concepts USA, Ohio