MEETINGS
Paul Shambroom

Hard bound, 12" x 9.5", 112 pages
40 color illustrations
2004, Consortium

From the Publisher:
Between 1999 and 2003, Paul Shambroom attended hundreds of town council meetings across the United States. Photographing the participants with a large format panoramic camera, his tableaux describe the humble practice of local government on an epic scale – echoing traditional portraits of the powerful, from European court to American history paintings, and the many representations of the ‘Last Supper’. They are also explorations of small town America, inspired by the road trips of Walker Evans and Robert Frank. With the full minutes of each meeting included, this is a revealing documentary record of the practice of local democracy at the beginning of the 21st Century, and the strongest work yet of an important photographic artist.

A celebration of small-town America, these accessible pictures have already been lauded by the critics (“Extraordinary”—the New York Times, “Powerful”—ArtForum, “Marvelous and beautiful”—Art Review) and collected by institutions such as the Whitney and MOMA New York. The minutes of each featured meeting are reproduced in full (runs over 40 pages at the back of the book and printed on Bible paper).

Paul Shambroom is a Minneapolis-based photo artist.

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