American Freaks

Buck Ellison’s photographs capture the codes of the 1% and how the 99% might see them

- Jonathan Griffin

The handsome blond man in the photograph reclines on a wrinkled Persian rug, an arm's length from the camera. His smiling eyes gaze fondly into ours. Maybe he's about to say something. But what?

Other details catch the eye: he has one finger in a book - Carl von Clausewitz's On War (1832) - and he wears a wedding ring. His stonewashed denim shirt is embroidered with the corporate logo of SAIC 'An employee-owned company' - and he sports a rugged-looking digital watch. His forearms are scratched. On the brim of his baseball cap, in permanent marker, is written the word 'PRINCE'.

What else might you want to know about this picture? It is an artwork by the artist Buck Ellison, currently on view in the Whitney Biennial. Ellison is a Los Angeles-based conceptual photographer who works for the most part in what you might call a commercial idiom: well-lit, immaculately composed and often staged still lifes, portraits and narrative tableaux. The title of this photograph is Rain in Rifle Season, Distributions from Split-Interest Trusts, Price Includes Uniform, Never Hit Soft, 2003 (2021), and it depicts Erik Prince, former Navy SEAL and founder of military contractor Blackwater, at home on his Wyoming ranch in 2003.