Tag: Jesse Rieser

This is the fourth time I’ve featured Jesse Rieser’s terrific project, Christmas in America: Happy Birthday Jesus, first in 2013, then again in 2016 and in 2019. The good news is that this is an 8 year effort and it gives more gifts with each year. He completed the project this year with work made in New York. His perspective of examining this holiday/religious/commercial event from the outside, makes us see the folly and the magic of saying Happy Birthday to Jesus

I have always been a big fan of Jesse Rieser’s way of seeing. We’ve featured his humorous and quirky series focused on the holidays, Christmas in America Happy Birthday Jesus, numerous times and it always makes me laugh. He is a great observer of not only human behaviors but continues to look hard at what is disappearing in our cultural zeitgeist.  Rieser recently opened the exhibition, Souvenirs from Paradise, at the The Gallery at Mountain Shadows in Paradise Valley, Arizona that is on view until January 6th, 2023

I have to admit that I’m not a religious person, but I’m all in when it comes to Christmas. The lights, the decorations, the tree, the fantasy of Santa and the reindeer are wonderful distractions from politics and the end of the world as we know it. This is the third time I’ve featured Jesse Rieser’s terrific project, Christmas in America: Happy Birthday Jesus, first in 2013, then again in 2016. The good news is that this is an 8 year effort and it just gets more delicious with each year. He completed the project this year with work made in New York. His perspective of examining this holiday/religious/commercial event from the outside, makes us see the folly and the magic of saying Happy Birthday to Christ.

Jesse Rieser believes he grew up in peak mall culture. As a child in Springfield, Mo., in the 1990s, he remembers back-to-school shopping with his mom at Macy’s, discovering music at Best Buy, and avoiding his brother’s Nerf gun at Toys R Us.

In October of last year, some three months after the last reported shooting, Phoenix photographer Jesse Rieser made the forty-minute drive to Maryvale and spent a little more than a week in the neighborhood. Joining him was the French journalist Emmanuelle Andreani-Facchin of Society Magazine, who spoke with residents and detectives about the case. Their story ran in the magazine on the week of the US election, as part of the “America” issue.

A chance meeting with a synthetic, 40-foot-tall, somewhat disturbing Santa guarding a Christmas tree lot made Jesse Rieser realize the strange ways Americans show their love for the holiday season. Since that fateful encounter in Glendale, Ariz., in 2010, Mr. Rieser has dedicated himself to finding the most over-the-top home light displays, outlandish Santas and overworked elves, as well as sincere displays of religious devotion.

Initially inspired by the absurdity of a five story inflatable Santa who appeared to be guarding a tree lot, I have launched this survey of uniquely American Christmas traditions. “Christmas in America” is an unvarnished examination of the ways people mark the holiday’s meaning.