America’s decoration frenzy: graveyard cemeteries, ghosts, guillotines, skeletons in coffins, dismembered body parts, giant spiders and creatures turn up on the front lawns and exteriors of suburban homes in America every year. Families across the country decorate and stage their porches and gardens with horror-themed scenes to celebrate Halloween on October 31. In 1984, American artist Cameron Jamie started photographing these front lawns in his old neighbourhood in a suburban area of Los Angeles. One aspect of what makes these photographs extraordinary is the fact that they were all shot during the day rather than at night, which changes the meaning and context of how we usually perceive the horror culture surrounding Halloween. Thus, Front Lawn Funerals and Cemeteries is not a book about Halloween, but rather about the opposing tensions of themes and imagery of death staged in these daylight domestic environments, which are at once very calm, humorous, violent, and uncanny. Thanks to Edition Patrick Frey (Zurich).
144 pages, 23.5 cm × 35 cm, hardcover, Edition Patrick Frey (Zurich).