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Photo ideal

Joel Sternfeld's new photo exhibit, "Sweet Earth: Experimental Utopias in America," is a series of photos from the sites of utopian communities throughout the U.S.

In 1982, while Mr. Sternfeld was still working on "American Prospects," he visited a socialist thinker, Scott Nearing, then 99, in Maine. Looking through Mr. Sternfeld's images for that series, Mr. Nearing advised that they were too critical of America. "Picture an ideal world and photograph that," he told the photographer. Mr. Sternfeld evidently took his advice, capturing in this body of work if not an ideal world, at least the idea of it.

jon posted this at 12:55 PM
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