"Although Brohm’s pictures depict Ohio, they deliver images of an urban America that are not specific to any particular locale. Everyday locations such as parking lots, front gardens and side streets provide the setting and stage for his work. Brohm is less interested in formulating a representation of reality than a concept of the world, in this case, based on America. Brohm’s interest in time-bound phenomena becomes apparent in his predilection for automobiles. Due to their monumental size and visionary design, they resemble fossils of a time long past in many of the pictures in the series. The country seems in a phase of transition.
While some of the photographs recapitulate the image repertoire of American photography, almost as if the German photographer were ascertaining whether what he is seeing is visually valid, other pictures emit a sense of unfamiliarity, abandonment and menace: abandoned toys in a garden, a deserted drive-in or slowly corroding sun-parched objects inside a car. When people appear in the pictures, they seem alienated and detached. Particularly powerful are the photographs depicting destroyed billboards, construction work and overhead wires, they represent the transience of the American dream and the alienation and isolation related to it."
