God Bless America

Artist's book, 2005
20 black and white photographs, paperback
Accordion book published in 2010

Geoffrey Biddle’s handsomely crafted God Bless America book provides a time-stamped record of the immediate aftermath of the September 11th attacks. In a series of striking black and white images taken on a stretch of local commercial highway he encountered in Ellsworth, Maine, the photographer has preserved a notable phenomenon seen in the vernacular landscapes of the country in the emotional wake of the 9/11 terrorist strikes, which killed nearly 3,000 irreplaceable individuals. Unfolding in an accordion, Biddle’s twenty images record quotidian outdoors signage and billboards replete with messages of patriotism, support and prayer. Conspicuously, the merchants and property owners who created them did not erase their business supplications: to cancel the spirit of enterprise would negate the resolve to perpetuate American values in defiance of the efforts of Islamist extremists to intimidate the United States and derail its economy and civic freedoms. Instead, lettering and information layouts were rearranged to insert motivational content, typically opting for familiar phrases such as “God Bless America, “United We Stand” and “Sweet Land of Liberty.” In unassuming poses, the photographer, his wife and the couple’s dog intermittently appear in proximity with this potpourri of road-side sympathy. The irony is not lost on Biddle that these advertisements for lobster dinners, fast food specials and golf driving ranges symbolize many of the same elements of Western capitalist culture that were under attack on 9/11.

—Jan Seidler Ramirez, Chief Curator, National September 11 Memorial Museum