Living room in a house near Ludlow, eastern Colorado, July 6, 1999
Artist
Steve Fitch
(American, born 1949)
Date1999
MediumChromogenic print (Fuji Crystal Archive paper)
DimensionsImage: 15 1/2 × 19 1/2 in. (39.4 × 49.5 cm)
Support: 16 × 20 in. (40.6 × 50.8 cm)
Support: 16 × 20 in. (40.6 × 50.8 cm)
ClassificationsPhotograph
Credit LineGift of Steve Fitch, 2021
Object number2021.10.20
DescriptionInterior, two walls and ceiling converge at around center rear of composition. Walls appear to have cracked apart at top and in front of them on floor is an old-fashioned wooden cabinet with inset television screen with a cloth draped on top and a pair of antlers reaching upward. Leaning against the all at right is a stack of wood, tables, or furniture. On the floor in front of the television is debris and a bouquet of artificial flowers in a vase shaped like a basket with an arched handle. Against the wall at left is what appears to be a more recent model television with a helmet on top and other stacked debris.eMuseum Notes
Photographer Steve Fitch remembers when his family first got a television in the 1950s, enclosed in cabinetry to coordinate with the furniture. As he photographed the interiors of houses across the Great Plains regions that were abandoned by their residents, he found many TVs left behind, along with other artifacts familiar from his own childhood. Originally trained as an archeologist, Fitch realized that he was uncovering ruins from his own generation, the material culture of Baby Boomers who tried to make a go of it in isolated locations and eventually quit and drove away. Viewed from the outside from a passing car, we may romanticize these weathered structures an imagine the people who lived in them. But Fitch’s interior views suggest how the refuge of a home can become a prison.
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