Alec Soth

Published to coincide with a two-part exhibition presented in 2008 at the Van Abbemuseum in the Netherlands and at the University of Chicago's Smart Museum of Art, Heartland offers an idiosyncratic look at innovative forms of cultural production taking place across the vast majority of the United States. This book is part exhibition catalog, part critical reader: contributors explore the region through topics ranging from art and music to urban farming and political history. Through an engaging mix of essays, personal meditations, and images, Heartland challenges understandings of place and community and explores the rule of contemporary art in shaping our changing world. --from book jacket