Jon Lowenstein

From the series “Chicagoland”

Jon Lowenstein (b.1970, United States) specializes in long-term, in-depth documentary photographic projects which question the status quo. He attended the University of Iowa and graduated with a degree in English in 1993. Jon has been documenting the South Side Chicago community for the past eight years and his recent work includes stories from Central America. His awards include a 2008 Alicia Patterson Fellow and garnering the 2007 Getty Award for Editorial Images. He also received a 2007 World Press Photo Award, a 2007 USC Annenberg Institute for Justice and Journalism Fellowship, the 2005 NPPA New America Award, Nikon Sabbatical Grant, and Fuji Community Awareness Award. He participated in the Open Society Institute’s Moving Walls Exhibition and was a finalist for the 2006 W. Eugene Smith Award.

About the Photograph:

“Chicago is not typically designated in dream-like terms.  If anything, its nostalgia is evoked through a mythology of its icy literalness. It is, after all, the poster-city of American industrial power, sweet home to ruthless gangsters and red-faced politicians. For years, the ‘Second City’ has been overlooked in favor of the more urbane New York and the glitterati of Los Angeles. Chicagoland is a photographic dream journey through what many term The Most American City.   Obama’s election to the presidency reflects the straight-thinking values historically associated with Chicago and in doing so, brings the world’s gaze to its lakeshores.  Unlike the older east coast cities with their Anglo colonial roots, Chicago has always been the working immigrant’s kind of town. The adage that to understand Chicago is to understand America has perhaps never been so much the case.”