Jamie Sims, The New York Times Style Magazine
Leah Frances didn’t take up photography in earnest until 2013, but her subject matter is firmly rooted in the past — or at least it appears to be. Fluorescent-lit diners, wood-paneled motel rooms and rusted muscle cars populate her Instagram account @americansquares, and this month, a monograph of the same name published by Ain’t Bad. Frances became fascinated by these relics of Americana when she moved to New York City from Vancouver Island, British Columbia, in 2005 and would go for long walks in her Brooklyn neighborhood. [She] detected a longing for the past, a phenomenon that she hadn’t experienced in her native Canada. Eventually, camera in hand, she decided to seek out the original places on which these simulacra were based.
American Squares
Published by AINT-BAD, Fall 2019
Photographs by Leah Frances
Essay by Yani Kong
Details
63 color photographs
96 pages, 7×9 inches
Hardcover; section sewn
ISBN: 978-1-944005-31-3
Price: $40
My first photo book, “American Squares,” debuted in September 2019 at the New York Art Book Fair at MoMA PS1. It was quickly featured by T, The New York Times Style Magazine, in their “T Suggests: Things our Editors Like” column.
Select Press for “American Squares”
10/2019: AINT-BAD, An Independent Publisher of New Photographic Art, IN CONVERSATION: LEAH FRANCES
09/2019: Lenscratch, Fine Art Photography Daily, Leah Frances: American Squares
09/2019: Photo-Emphasis, Project Spotlight: American Squares
09/2019: T, The New York Times Style Magazine, T Suggests: Photographing the Relics of a Bygone America
09/2019: Lomography Magazine, Leah Frances' American Squares Finally Goes Print
09/2019: PHROOM Magazine (Italy), Leah Frances, American Squares
Available at
New York Art Book Fair, MoMA PS1, Sept 20-22nd, 2019
Independent Art Book Fair, Brooklyn NY, Sept 21st, 2019
Silver Eye Book Fair, Pittsburgh, Oct 4-5th, 2019
Review Santa Fe, Photographic Book Fair, Oct 20, 2019
Boston Art Book Fair, Boston, MA, Nov 8-10th, 2019
Chicago Art Book Fair, Chicago, IL, Nov 15-17th, 2019