Danny Lyon: Junk

Lyon's Junk: America in Ruins is a book featuring pictures of 86 American cars, mostly from the 1950s and 1960s, taken in the junkyards of the western United States.

When he was 21, Lyon's father passed on to him a 1953 Oldsmobile. He discovered the ecstasy of speeding along Georgia highways during the civil rights movement, with red dirt fields of peanuts and cotton flying by. In the excitement of driving, he realized his own mortality.

Junk: America in Ruins showcases photographs taken in Nebraska, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Oklahoma. This work is a pure visual exploration of photography. The premise behind it is that many things—such as sculptures, monuments, and buildings—take on a new and added beauty as they deteriorate into ruins: a certain pathos is added to their original elegance. This is true of the automobiles in this series. Once beloved machines of people and families who owned and drove them, they now evoke a terrible beauty and sadness.