Last man standing
The winner of a demolition derby in Nebraska stands on the wreck of his car. Photograph: Gregory Halpern
“It’s a bizarre phenomenon,” says the US photographer Gregory Halpern. “People take these junkyard cars and fix them up so that the engine works, even though the shell is a total wreck.
Then the cars drive around in a muddy arena, spewing dirt everywhere and ramming into each other – and the last car still driving wins.
”He’s talking about a very American motor sport called demolition derby, one of many striking activities he documented during his visits to Nebraska over the past 14 years.
Halpern (born in Buffalo, New York state, in 1977) was invited to do an artist’s residency in the state’s largest city, Omaha.
Taking photos of midwestern life over the course of six months, he gradually zeroed in on the subject of hypermasculinity, which he felt was “much more celebrated and part of the visual culture in Nebraska” than in coastal cities such as San Francisco, where he was teaching photography at the time.
Out of the photos from his first visit, he created Omaha Sketchbook, self-published in 2009 using a laser printer and running to just 35 copies.
Ten years and several return visits later, Halpern – who received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2014 – has updated (and upgraded) Omaha Sketchbook for a wider readership, though the images remain at contact-sheet dimensions.
At the demolition derby, Halpern captured the winner standing triumphantly on the roof of his battered car as smoke spews out in all directions.
It may look like something out of Mad Max but Halpern says the event felt “good-natured: the crowd is drinking and cheering. Sometimes fights will break out, but generally speaking it’s bizarrely fun”.
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