North Dakota (Moonrise at Garage)
Paul Graham British
Not on view
Paul Graham is a connoisseur of unremarkable moments—what he calls "sputtering pieces of time." His elliptical views of a North Dakota truck stop evince this idiosyncratic way of seeing, which invests everyday encounters with an x-factor of grace. In this group of pictures, made during a rambling tour of the US which inspired a set of photobooks, Graham guides us around an empty parking lot, finding snatches of glamour in the shimmering blacktop and dusky sky. Squint, and the fluorescent lights of the filling station twinkle overhead. If most other works from this series attend to the small-scale dramas of American inequality, here the British photographer allows him to be incrementally seduced by a cinematic myth of the western states, all diesel, chrome, and open roads. Nothing much happens in these pictures, but it hardly matters; as Graham has asked, "Why is everyone addicted to prepackaged spectacular moments? There is so much more to the flow of life all around us."
