Air Force One
Sheet: 22 5/8 × 24 1/16 inches (57.47 × 61.12 cm)
Thinking Photography: Five Decades at the Kansas City Art Institute. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, July 24, 2010 – January 2, 2011, no cat.
This image, taken at the Minneapolis Convention Center, pictures a recreation of Air Force One, on view as part of a temporary display during the 2008 Republican National Convention. Chuck Avery’s formal precision presents the reproduction as if it could be the actual plane of the U.S. president. He deliberately blurs fact and fabrication and calls into question the faith we place in photographs as documents of reality.
Avery’s photographs of American cultural attractions, such as this image from his Museums series, often feature roadside structures, fake architecture, dioramas, and makeshift historical displays that populate the world of leisure and tourism.
