American Falls - Phil Solomon, 2010

“American Falls“ was commissioned by Paul Roth, senior curator and director of photography and media arts at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., who invited Solomon to tour the Corcoran after seeing one of his works at the New York Film Festival. Upon his initial visit to the gallery, Solomon was especially captivated by two works: Frederic E. Church’s famous painting, “Niagara,“ and Jennifer Steinkamp’s “Loop,“ a digital installation in the rotunda of the gallery with a seven-second loop pattern. “With six projectors overlapping, expertly put in the architecture, Steinkamp’s work really transformed the place, and I became extremely interested in such multi-screen pieces,“ Solomon said in an interview with The Crimson. The war memorials in D.C. also had a big influence on Solomon. “The Korean War memorial thrilled me because of its photographic nature. It looked like my films—it had this kind of grainy texture from the rock,“ Solomon says.