Steve Simon: The Republicans - Hardcover

Stacey D. Clarkson, Art Director , Harper's Magazine

"Steve Simon set to work to capture, in stark, disturbing and yet often ruefully funny black and white photographs, images of that summer's Republican Convention. The book is a terrifying tour de force: half circus, half Armageddon. It's tempting to think of Republicans as inevitably easy to caricature, but there are shots here of a tumult of true believers all tinctured to death with memories -- of 9/11, of Iraq, abortion phobia and of God's once being on their side -- that make your blood run cold."

Gary Michael Dault, The Toronto Globe and Mail

"Steve Simon behaves differently. He shows us the staging off-camera and television personalities before they compose their august on-air expressions. He gives us the blur of the secret service removing an unwanted dissident from the arena. Simon is an unusual type of spy, one who records information others regard as irrelevant. We live still in an age when public debate is carefully choreographed, under a government that prizes control. In this setting, in these times, Simon's images remain renegade."

Mark Engler, from the introduction to The Republicans

At one demonstration, 400, 000 demonstrators marched past a heavily fortified Republican convention hall exercising their right to free speech. They chanted denunciations of the administration and the war in Iraq as delegates flocked to the city to nominate President Bush for four more years in the White House. The security was unprecedented for a political convention. This is the new reality in the Land Of The Free.

The convention took place inside the secure cocoon of Madison Square Garden. The media has played a powerful role in the American political process, and a main focus for me was on the media. Remarkably, there were some 17,000 media members covering less than 5,000 delegates. I believe that my experience as an artist and observer was very different from the experience of watching the convention through the media. Through this body of work I attempt to open the curtain and provide a peek at what was happening during this iconic week in our history, from my personal perspective.