Omaha Sketchbook

Omaha Sketchbook is a collection of photographs made by Gregory Halpern in Omaha, Nebraska between 2005 and 2019. Driven by his interest in, and ambivalence to, the modes of masculinity he found there, Halpern presents a lyrical, if equivocal, response to the American Heartland. In loosely-collaged spreads that reproduce Halpern’s construction-paper sketchbooks, Halpern takes p...

Omaha Sketchbook is a collection of photographs made by Gregory Halpern in Omaha, Nebraska between 2005 and 2019. Driven by his interest in, and ambivalence to, the modes of masculinity he found there, Halpern presents a lyrical, if equivocal, response to the American Heartland. In loosely-collaged spreads that reproduce Halpern’s construction-paper sketchbooks, Halpern takes pleasure in cognitive dissonance and unexpected harmonies, playing on a sense of simultaneous repulsion and attraction to the place. Omaha Sketchbook is ultimately a meditation on a place, on the men and boys who inhabit it, and on the mechanics of aggression, inadequacy, and power.