The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met) in New York brings into dialogue the photographic work of Anastasia Samoylova and that of Walker Evans, which explore the contradictions and complexities of Florida over a century.

The New York institution invites us on a journey through time in Florida, a popular tourist destination since the early 20th century. Walker Evans (1903-1975), a major figure in documentary and humanist photography, and Anastasia Samoylova (1984-), an American artist and photographer of Russian origin, trace the imagery of this multifaceted subtropical paradise. Evans, renowned for his portraits of victims of the Great Depression, vernacular architecture, domestic interiors, and road signs, captured the emergence of the "Sunshine State" over forty years, beginning in the 1930s. Samoylova, known for her work on environmental and cultural transformations, has crisscrossed Florida since 2016, inheriting everything her predecessor foresaw.

EPINAL IMAGES

Palm trees and flamingos, real estate advertisements and souvenir stands, grand hotels and gilded-age mansions… The Met reveals a whole body of rarely seen images by Walker Evans on the walls of its New York space. Between frequent trips back and forth, the photographer captured the emergence of Florida in every nook and cranny, without ever falling into the conventions of the picturesque guidebook. He skillfully intertwined cultural influences, diverse heritages, the first waves of tourism, and the contrasting beauty of this haven of excess.
This is just a small fraction of the 600 photographs he took, shown here as prints. A digital slideshow presents " a selection of uncropped negatives and color slides from his various visits to Florida between 1934 and 1968 Images from Karl Bickel's 1942 book, The Mangrove Coast, are also on display. Walker Evans spent six weeks traveling the "forgotten" west coast between Sarasota and Tallahassee, where he captured roadside attractions, street scenes, plant life and architecture, as well as John Ringling's neo-Gothic mansion.

Other archival materials, acquired by the Met in 1994, are also included in the exhibition, such as his Polaroids, figurative paintings, and his famous penny postcards. Walker Evans collected 9,000 of them. From grand hotels (the Breakers in Palm Beach, the Royal Palm in Miami) to the interplay of flora and fauna (orange groves, tropical fruit farms, palm trees, alligators, ostriches, flamingos) and boat trips (in Silver Springs and Ocklawaha), all of them celebrated the Sunshine State as a vacation paradise and marked the rapid growth of tourism. His early photographs, taken in the early 1930s, foreshadowed his work for the Farm Security Administration across the United States.

FLORIDA IN CHANGE

Born in Russia, Anastasia Samoylova arrived in the United States in 2008 and has lived in Miami since 2016. Her work focuses on environmental and cultural transformations. She was recently nominated for the 2025 Prix Élysée for her series Transformations, inspired by the concept of "climatopias," which address the effects of climate change. In this series, she photographs Florida, traveling along its winding roads from the Keys to the borders with Alabama and Georgia. This virtuoso artist plays with mirrors, windows, reflections, and refractions. In her collages, she uses acrylic paint to combine photographic realism with pictorial artifice. A prime example is this mirror in the shape of the Venus de Milo, which seems to float among palm trees and shopfronts. This image was taken through a shop window in Miami's Design District during the Covid-19 pandemic. The collage effect, with interior, exterior, and reflected space compressed into a single visual plane, creates a dizzying sensation of spatial disorientation. " the commissioners explained.
The exhibition, based on the book Floridas (Steidl editions, 2022), highlights the approaches of these two photographers who, in their similarity, sometimes become indistinguishable. Between past and present, black and white and color, both distort visual clichés in a play of fantasy and reality of the Sunshine State. Walker Evans chronicles a state booming thanks to tourism and construction, while Samoylova shows it battered by climate change and overconstruction " David Campany points out in his essay that accompanies the book.

All these images on display highlight both this balancing act and the growing chasm between the ideals and the reality of Florida, which symbolize the contradictions of the United States today.

“FLORIDAS: ANASTASIA SAMOYLOVA AND WALKER EVANS”
THE MET FIFTH AVENUE, GALLERY 852
1000 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK (USA)
UNTIL MAY 11, 2025
METMUSEUM.ORG