European Debut of photo exhibition GENERATION WEALTH by Lauren Greenfield

The Nobel Peace Center proudly announces that it will host the highly acclaimed photo exhibition, GENERATION WEALTH by Lauren Greenfield, created by the internationally renowned American photographer and filmmaker. This will be the first showing of the photo exhibition in Europe, which was originally produced by and debuted at the prestigious Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles. This photo exhibit, an extraordinary visual record and thematic investigation of our cultural obsession with wealth, celebrity, and image, will be on view at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, a distinguished arena for documentary photography and engagement with pressing social issues, from February 13, 2018 through August 20, 2018.

The first major retrospective of Greenfield’s work, the exhibition features nearly 200 photographs, numerous first-person interviews, and documentary film footage, forming a thematic investigation of how the pursuit of wealth, and its material trappings and elusive promises of happiness, has evolved since the late 1990s. Weaving together stories about affluence, beauty, body image, competition, corruption, fantasy, and excess, Greenfield’s sweeping project questions the distance between value and commodity in a globalized consumerist culture.The exhibition is accompanied by a monograph published by Phaidon, which reached the best-seller list of Amazon’s Best Art and Photography Books of 2017 and was honored by the Lucie Award for Best Photo Book of the Year.

Greenfield’s lushly colored photographs—densely packed with visual information and paired with candid interviews with those pictured—are alternately shocking, humorous, touchingly vulnerable, and, often, unnervingly brash. The exhibition offers an insightful investigation into the pursuit of wealth, and its material trappings and elusive promises of happiness, and how it has evolved since the early 1990s.

Lauren Greenfield’s filmed and photographic works have long been supported by the Annenberg Foundation. "Lauren Greenfield has given us nothing short of an x-ray of our ambitions and ideals. In all of contemporary photography, no one is better at exploring the tension between what we covet and who we really are—between the mad dash for affluence and the price we pay for that pursuit," said Wallis Annenberg, Chairman of the Board, President and CEO of the Annenberg Foundation. "To me, Lauren Greenfield is so much more than a groundbreaking artist; she's a sociologist, a storyteller, an ironist and a keen humorist. This is a wonderful, timely, thought-provoking body of work."

The exhibit is currently on display at the ICP Museum in New York, often referred to as the world’s leading institution dedicated to photography and visual culture.

“We are very happy to be the first museum to present GENERATION WEALTH, in Europe. It’s a critically important exhibition that speaks volumes about the pervasiveness of consumer culture on a global scale. I believe that Norwegians recognize a similar trend in our society and we do believe that the exhibition will provoke timely and much-needed debate on inequality, consumerism and excess,” said Liv Tørres, Director of The Nobel Peace Center.

“Beginning in Los Angeles in the '90s, I examined the 'influence of affluence' as media and globalization exported our notions of success around the world. The title of the project and some of the pictures could mislead the reader to think that this is a work about the one percent, about people who are wealthy. It is not. This work is about the aspiration for wealth and how that has become a driving force—and at the same time an increasingly unrealistic goal—for individuals from all classes of society”, says Greenfield. “I hope this work can be a wake-up call and help show that our addiction to consumerism is ultimately unsustainable for our environment, our communities, our economies, and our families. I am honored to show this work at the Nobel Peace Center, a beacon for peace, social change, and humanitarian values throughout the world.”

About the photographer

Lauren Greenfield is an Emmy Award®–winning documentary filmmaker and photographer who is considered a preeminent chronicler of consumerism, youth culture, and gender identity (Fast Forward, Girl Culture, and THIN). Her documentary film, The Queen of Versailles, won her the Best Director Award at Sundance in 2012 and numerous other best director awards. Greenfield’s photographs have been widely published, exhibited, and collected by museums around the world. Her #LikeAGirl video was seen by 214 million global viewers and garnered more than 100 awards. Her latest feature-length film, also named Generation Wealth, will premiere opening night of the Sundance Film Festival in January, 2018.

About the Annenberg Space for Photography

The Annenberg Space for Photography is a cultural destination dedicated to exhibiting both digital and print photography in an intimate environment. The space features state-of-the-art, high-definition digital technology as well as traditional prints by some of the world's most renowned photographers and a selection of emerging photographic talents as well. The venue, an initiative of the Annenberg Foundation and its trustees, is the first solely photographic cultural destination in the Los Angeles area, and it creates a new paradigm in the world of photography.