The Last Things explores the artifacts of an American archeological present. The work in this series depicts vernacular forms of architecture, signage, images, and objects that were hastily made in a rush for attention, or abandoned in place after their usefulness had expired. Lehr posits them as symptomatic symbols of the repetitive cycles of decline, rehabilitation, violence, and mourning that are woven into the fabric of contemporary American life.
These light-drenched photographs vividly describe a nation speaking through the language of capitalism. Words and images repeat and contradict throughout the work, reflecting emphatic pleas and shifting priorities. At other times, language breaks down completely, giving way to pictographic forms that are both primitive and utterly contemporary. Flaking paint morphs into JPEG vinyl printouts and LED displays, blurring the line between commercial speech and individual expression.
Embedded in the work is a belief in the power and absurdity of objects that—like a body—bear the traces of collective experience. In its distilled and emphatic sequencing The Last Things reads as a prose poem and a cryptic cipher about a country at the brink of a tipping point.
