Since the late 19th century, Baseball has been known as the great American pastime. Over the past 50 years, American Football usurped the crown of televised sports, but out here, in the un-televised real world of dirt tracks, fairgrounds, and backyards The Demolition Derby has loudly proven itself the people’s champion of motorsport and spectacle.
Building, destroying, rebuilding, and wrenching every inch of life out of the dead and dying machines, derby competitors are equally mechanics, engineers, drivers, and stunt people.
The energy of the crowd, the sounds of screaming engines, the wave of impact as cars smash into each other, over and over and over again is uniquely powerful and one of the perennial highlights of the summer.
Through the photographs of Dan Nelken and the film of Alec Sutherland this show will put the excitement of the derby on Main Street!
Dan Nelken is a visual artist, educator, lecturer, and documentary storyteller based in New York City. He specializes in portrait-based photography that offers a window into communities that often exist outside of the cultural mainstream. His portraits aspire to accentuate individuality while acknowledging the importance of group behaviors, habits, and rituals.
His work has been exhibited and published internationally and is in both public and private collections, including the MAST Foundation, Bologna, IT, The International Center of Photography, New York, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Portland Museum of Art, W.M. Hunt Collection Dancing Bear and the Vontobel Art Collection, Zurich, CH.
Alec Sutherland is a director + editor. He likes asking questions and is adept at finding the emotional thread.
His work has been awarded a Cannes Lion, published by The New Yorker, NOWNESS. He writes screenplays and is a partner in the creative production studio NIGHT SHIFT. He splits his time between Delhi, Los Angeles and New York City.
Still from Alec Sutherland’s Demolition