Cameron Jamie: Front Lawn Funerals and Cemeteries

Paris-based American artist Cameron Jamie began photographing Halloween
decorations on the front lawns of suburban houses in LA in 1984, and continued
this ritual for the next 20 years. Shot in black and white during the day, his
photographs expose the humorous, uncanny and violent side of America s
penchant for ritual horror. Jamie, whose work has been referred to as backyard
anthropology, came into his own as an artist in early 1990s Los Angeles. His
collaborative practice and immersion in contemporary culture s peripheral
elements are reminiscent of the work of cinema verité filmmaker Jean Rouch.
Seen through Jamie s eye, suburban front lawns become theatrical stages on
which death is expressed and perceived as amusement. Exceptionally produced
with glow-in-the-dark lettering on the cover and gravestone-imitated endpapers,
Front Lawn Funerals and Cemeteries demonstrates how the fictionalized world of
Hollywood horror merges with ordinary life in Los Angeles.