American Legion, Monroe, Michigan

For more than four decades, photographer Lynne Cohen drew attention to the standardization of the communal spaces in which people conduct their day-to-day lives. Systematically shooting found environments with an 8 × 10–inch camera, Cohen utilized a high level of detail to emphasize the sterile designs of these modern environments, in which efforts at personalization often seem futile. In this early photograph, Cohen focused her camera on the American Legion, a US veteran’s service group. Sequences of generic portraits and tightly stacked folding chairs allude to the room’s missing inhabitants. Highlighting the order and rigidity embedded in modern spaces, Cohen implicitly connects the nature of these environments to society at large.