Sam Comen, Young Ae, Tailor from the series Working America,
2018; Digital photograph, 36 x 24 inches; Courtesy of the artist.
Sam Comen, Chris and Jenny, Booksellers from the series Working
America, 2019; Digital photograph, 36 x 24 inches; Courtesy of the
artist.
Sam Comen, Pascual, Furniture caner from the series Working
America, 2018; Digital photograph, 17 1/4 x 11 1/2 inches; Courtesy of
the artist.
Sam Comen, Hisham, Film and TV electrician from the series Working
America, 2019; Digital photograph, 27 x 18 inches; Courtesy of the
artist.
Sam Comen, Jesus, Dishwasher from the series Working America,
2018; Digital photograph, 36 x 24 inches; Courtesy of the artist.
Sam Comen, Lana, Esthetician from the series Working America,
2019; Digital photograph, 17 1/4 x 11 1/2 inches; Courtesy of the artist.
Sam Comen, Veronica and Ermelinda, Zipper cutters from the series
Working America, 2018; Digital photograph, 27 x 18 inches; Courtesy
of the artist.
Sam Comen, Concepción, Florist from the series Working America,
2018; Digital photograph, 36 x 24 inches; Courtesy of the artist.
Sam Comen, Gevorg, Orthopedic shoemaker from the series Working
America, 2018; Digital photograph, 36 x 24 inches; Courtesy of the
artist.
Sam Comen, Cynthia, Chef and server from the series Working
America, 2019; Digital photograph, 17 1/4 x 11 1/2 inches; Courtesy of
the artist.
Sam Comen, Greg, Sauerkraut and pickle maker from the series
Working America, 2019; Digital photograph, 36 x 24 inches; Courtesy
of the artist.
Sam Comen, Abdou, Tailor from the series Working America, 2020;
Digital photograph, 27 x 18 inches; Courtesy of the artist.
Installation view from The Outwin: American Portraiture Today featuring Second Prize winner Jesus,
Dishwasher at center. National Portrait Gallery, 2019. Photograph courtesy of the artist.
Sam Comen, Young Ae, Tailor from the series Working America,
2018; Digital photograph, 36 x 24 inches; Courtesy of the artist.
Working America
Photographer Sam Comen features minority populations, their jobs, and how their own American identities are formed as immigrants. The exhibition includes workers in small trade professions like furniture caning, tailoring, carpet cleaning, and electrical work.
“Walking and driving every day in my native Los Angeles, I look around and see an economically thriving microcosm of a multiracial, immigrant America. The Armenian American shoemaker, the Korean American tailor, the Mexican American machine operator working the late shift in the last zipper factory left in the country. As the great-grandson of Eastern European Jewish immigrants, I can’t help but think of 2019 Los Angeles as a contemporary analog to my forebears’ late-nineteenth-century experience in Chicago or Boston.
“It’s with my great-grandparents in mind that I’ve come to question how, in light of recent anti-immigrant rhetoric stoking wide debate across the U.S., their story might still be relevant today. Inspired by their work in the garment industry, I decided to consider immigrant Americans and first-generation Americans through the lens of the “small trades,” re-engaging with the historical portrait approach that masters of photography Eugéne Atget, August Sander, and Irving Penn used to study national identity, work, and class in their own times.”
-Sam Comen
In the photography exhibition Working America, artist Sam Comen presents American immigrants and first-generation Americans at work in the small, skilled trades as icons of the American experience. The subjects share stories of economic independence and struggle, belonging and exclusion, faith and fear, and service to both community and family.
A variety of themes are explored in the portraits and accompanying interviews, including the dignity of work, inequity among immigrant nationalities, the political relevance of labor migrants, the intergenerational legacies of inherited skills, and the learning of new skills to adapt to the new land of opportunity; and the relationship between a nation’s identity and the identities of the individuals who comprise that nation.
This body of work has particular relevance today in a political landscape where anti-immigrant and pro-worker sentiments figure prominently. Comen has revisited some of his portrait subjects more recently, to update their stories in the extraordinary context of the global pandemic and subsequently devastating economic hardship, adding new dimensions and timeliness to the project.
Working America is a meditation on American belonging and American becoming, it poetically acknowledges the lives and contributions of working men and women make as a part of our country and our collective experience.
About the artist
As a native Californian, Sam Comen has used his home state as a muse throughout his career and often looks to the places that define us for inspiration. He has long focused on themes of American identity, community-building, immigration, democracy, and social justice in his photographic work.
His portrait Jesus, Dishwasher (2019) from the Working America series was awarded Second Prize in the prestigious triennial The Outwin: American Portraiture Today at the National Portrait Gallery in 2019, and his work was on view in there in the 2017–18 exhibition, The Sweat of Their Face: Portraying American Workers.
His photographs are collected by the Library of Congress, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and private collectors, and he is regularly commissioned by brands and publications internationally.
Exhibition Details
40 photographic works and a video kiosk
- Press Kit
- Registrar’s Packet
- Programming Guide
- Gallery Guide
- Text Panels
- Narrative Labels
- Full Insurance
- Installation Instructions
- Custom-Designed and Built Crates
Exhibits USA
Tour Schedule
Working America will tour April 2022 through March 2027. The dates below reflect seven-week exhibition periods. Dates are subject to change; please contact MoreArt@maaa.org or (800) 473-3872 x208/209 for current availability.
Supporting Assets
Factsheet
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