Description
Michael Dressel, born in East Berlin in 1958, is a wanderer between American and German culture. His regular journeys between his home towns on the American West Coast and Berlin have sensitized him to recognize the social changes of recent decades more clearly than most locals. His second book shows his view of American society on the eve of a historic election. The Americans have a choice between sanity and madness, between an orderly civil state and increasing decay and chaos. From a Central European perspective, the choice seems clear, but to get a sense of the current state of mind of Americans, it helps to look at this book with its end-time title. Dressel’s impressive images show a society on the edge of the abyss, marked by extreme nationalism, political polarization, religious fanaticism, gun mania coupled with paranoia and pervasive poverty and moral decay. His portraits are complemented by landscape photographs that speak their own gloomy language.
Michael Dressel briefly studied set design at the art academy Berlin Weissensee. He spent two formative years in East German prisons following a failed escape attempt. After being released to the West, he briefly lived in West Berlin in 1985 before moving to Los Angeles, where he has been living ever since. Until recently he worked as a sound editor for big movie productions in Hollywood which among other things resulted in membership in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Since his retirement from the movie industry he shares his time between Los Angeles and Berlin when not travelling and photographing. His first photobook „Lost Angeles“ was released jointly by Hartmann Books and Gingko Press in 2022.
“The American landscape of the West displays for me the hardness and mercilessness of the universe. Sometimes you might as well be on Mars and, in a way, you are. The landscapes present the discarded leftovers of human presence. These places feel to me as expressive of the state of this country as the faces of the people I encounter. The people, society and even the landscape feel really worn.” (Quote Michael Dressel)
