’Frontcountry’: photographer Lucas Foglia captures the American heartlands
![Lucas Foglia Front Country](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/dLT8CXbhbwUmVgZ9q5t27J-415-80.jpg)
Lucas Foglia would be the first to admit that his photographs have a life of their own beyond their subjects. The San Francisco-based photographer has just opened his latest show, 'Frontcountry', at the Michael Hoppen Contemporary gallery, as well as a book of the same name published via the Nazraeli Press.
Frontcountry was seven years in the making, the result of many thousands of miles of travel and an immersive method of working, living and shooting in and amongst his subjects. Foglia's projects start off as an exploration of place, but he soon finds himself more motivated by the people he finds there. For Frontcountry, the photographer headed into the American heartlands of Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Wyoming, big open landscapes where great national mythologies were forged and continue to inform our image of the land and the people.
Foglia approached this terrain with an open mind. His earlier project, 'A Natural Order', involved soaking up the culture and lifestyle of communities and individuals who have stepped off the grid, creating a set of bucolic images haunted by the deliberate absence of modern life. Frontcountry is rather different. 'There are not a lot of financial reasons to be a cowboy,' says Foglia, 'people do it because of the history and because of the lifestyle. Everyone I photograph is responding to a mythology and choosing a lifestyle based on that.'
Describing the 'front country' as that 'first row of houses when you're coming back into town from the country,' Foglia has spent seven years being around people in places where people are truly scarce. Ranches sprawl for hundreds of thousands of acres, and although every inch of the land is used in some way, the people who work on it are tough and thin on the ground. Money, what little there is of it, comes through the mines, great open wounds that are being torn up to scrape out copper and gold and other metals. It's a landscape of boom and bust, artificially inflated by mining investment, cataclysmically deflated when it leaves.
In the face of all this, Foglia has made some startling portraits. 'I build friendships that are in part based on the picture making,' he explains, 'for me it's all about collaboration - a number of pictures are of people performing for the camera.' He references the picture 'Tommy Trying to Shoot Coyotes, Big Springs Ranch, Oasis, Nevada' (2012). 'He was trying to show how he could shoot a coyote from on top of the fence pole. I took the photograph the moment before he fell off. With a loaded gun. So it's real. But it's also a performance.'
Our perception of small town America is largely informed by photographs and imagery and Foglia is under no illusions that he is adding to our preconceptions. But once the picture is taken, and the monograph printed or the show hung, he's happy for the next stage of its life to begin. Foglia's images of the mines themselves reveal their massive scale and the effect they have on the landscape, but still contain enough romance and heroism to make the mining company request a print for their HQ.
His portraits, meanwhile, make his subjects' lives look heroic but also leave the viewer in no doubt that these are tough and isolated people. 'I want my work to complicate mythology,' he says, 'each photograph is like a circus. It involves a performance and an audience.' Currently working on a new piece for an upcoming issue of McSweeney's, Foglia's photographs transcend straight documentary, and bring an impossible intimacy to places most of us see only in our mind.
'Naughton Power Plant, PacifiCorp, Kemmerer, Wyoming', 2010
'Loan Office, Happy State Bank, Silverton, Texas', 2012
'Stacy before Church, Diamond Valley, Nevada', 2012
A glossy tome was released by Nazraeli Press to coincide with the exhibition at Michael Hoppen Contemporary gallery
From left: 'Produced Water, Hamilton Dome Oil Field, Owl Creek, Wyoming', 2013; 'Coal Storage, TS Power Plant, Newmont Mining Corporation, Dunphy, Nevada', 2012
'Robinson Mine, KGHM International, Ely, Nevada', 2012
Detail of 'Thomas and Kimberly Swimming, Jeffrey City, Wyoming', 2010
'Ela and Bly, Wind River Reservation, Ethete, Wyoming', 2010
'Briscoe County Jail Cell, Silverton, Texas 2012
'Herman and Erin's New House, Siems Ranch, Merna, Wyoming', 2011; 'Dr. Perkes, Afton, Wyoming', 2010
'Gas Station Gravel, Eden, Wyoming', 2009; 'Mia and Burgundy, Cokeville, Wyoming', 2010
Detail of 'Surface Mining, Newmont Mining Corporation, Carlin, Nevada', 2012
ADDRESS
Wallpaper* Newsletter + Free Download
For a free digital copy of August Wallpaper*, celebrating Creative America, sign up today to receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories
Michael Hoppen Contemporary
3 Jubilee Place
London SW3 3TD
Jonathan Bell has written for Wallpaper* magazine since 1999, covering everything from architecture and transport design to books, tech and graphic design. He is now the magazine’s Transport and Technology Editor. Jonathan has written and edited 15 books, including Concept Car Design, 21st Century House, and The New Modern House. He is also the host of Wallpaper’s first podcast.
-
This Nova Lima apartment is a Brazilian family oasis with striking Minas Gerais views
A Nova Lima apartment designed by Jacobsen Arquitetura celebrates its long, natural Minas Gerais vistas
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Commune’s sustainable personal care products look ‘quite unlike anything else’
Commune’s Somerset-made products stand out in the sustainable skincare crowd. Madeleine Rothery speaks with the brand’s co-founders Kate Neal and Rémi Paringaux
By Madeleine Rothery Published
-
‘Hedonistic and avant-garde’: Rabanne’s Julian Dossena on the legacy of the chainmail 1969 bag
Paco Rabanne’s 1969 chainmail handbag encapsulates the late designer’s futuristic, space-age style. Current creative director Julien Dossena tells Wallpaper* about the bag’s particular pleasures
By Jack Moss Published
-
Alexander May, founder of LA studio Sized, on the joys of creative polymathy
Creative director Alexander May tells us of the multidisciplinary approach that drives his LA studio Sized and its offspring, a 5,000 sq ft event space and an exhibition series
By Hannah Silver Published
-
50 of America’s top creatives, photographed by Inez & Vinoodh
Photographed exclusively for Wallpaper* by Inez & Vinoodh, we present a portfolio of 50 creatives driving the current discourse on American culture and its dynamic evolution
By Dan Howarth Published
-
Nona Faustine confronts the past in New York
Artist Nona Faustine reframes New York's colonial past in an exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum
By Hannah Silver Published
-
How the west won: Ivan McClellan is amplifying the intrepid beauty of Black cowboy culture
In his new book, 'Eight Seconds: Black Cowboy Culture', Ivan McClellan draws us into the world of Black rodeo. Wallpaper* meets the photographer ahead of his Juneteenth Rodeo
By Tracy Kawalik Published
-
Casa Bosques’ queer-themed book curation comes to New York’s East Village
In Pride Month 2024, Casa Bosques’ pop-up bookstore in The Standard hotel, East Village, offers a stylish haven for literary mavens
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Calling NYC grads! Sarabande Foundation invites you to an industry masterclass to pave way into the creative world
‘What Now?’ by Sarabande Foundation is a post-college guide to support graduates in making their next steps, with advice from the likes of Burberry, Thom Browne, and more
By Tianna Williams Published
-
An avant-garde Korean art movement resurfaces in LA
LA's Hammer Museum gets its teeth into avant-garde Korean art with ‘Only the Young: Experimental Art in Korea, 1960s–1970s’
By Anne Soward Published
-
The New York art exhibitions to see in July
Read our pick of the best New York art exhibitions to see in July, from Jenny Holzer’s ‘Light Line’ at The Guggenheim to ‘Cosmography: an exploration of space and humanity’ at Templon
By Hannah Silver Last updated