“There is still some hope in these midterm elections, but we have to find the strength to try to set things right, to make things fairer and more just. We’ll see what happens.”

That is how Jessica Lange answers a question about the possible outcome of the U.S. midterm elections, which will offer a measure of where Donald Trump’s America stands. For now, however, the actress sums up the situation in stark terms.

“We’re going through difficult times. We may be at the lowest point we’ve ever reached right now.”

It is only fitting to use the word “photograph,” given that the acclaimed film star — a two-time Academy Award winner, for Tootsie in 1983 and Blue Sky in 1995, and now back for the new season of American Horror Story (streaming on Disney+ since Oct. 1) — arrived in Turin on Tuesday to present her solo exhibition, Jessica Lange: Photographs. Still Image, on view through Feb. 7, 2027, at the Chiablese Rooms of the Royal Museums of Turin.

Curated by Anne Morin and produced by Ares in collaboration with the Royal Museums of Turin, the exhibition features more than 200 photographs taken over nearly three decades of artistic exploration.

Photography was a passion Lange cultivated before turning to acting, when she studied the medium at the university in her home state of Minnesota. Later, during a stay in Paris in the 1970s, she became friends with photographers Robert Frank and Danny Lyon.

Then, in the early 1990s, she rediscovered photography after receiving a Leica as a gift.

“These photographs aren’t just about America; they embrace the whole world. They’re a kind of diary, written in words and images, of the American way of life — but not only that,” Lange says.

She also describes the connection between acting and photography.

“I’ve always approached both photography and acting through their emotional power. Whenever I take on a character or a role, I begin by trying to work through an emotional journey. It’s the same with photography. I try to capture that moment, that particular time that triggers an emotional response in me and moves me.”

1 / 3

The exhibition is divided into eight thematic sections, many of them being shown for the first time, together forming the largest exhibition ever devoted to Lange’s work as a photographer.

There is no chronological order. Often there are no captions, and there is no obvious thread running through the photographs other than Lange’s gaze. The United States is represented by a series devoted to Highway 61, which runs from north to south, but there are also photographs from Mexico, Scotland and Ethiopia. Together, they form something like a private travel diary — originally created to remain personal rather than to be seen by a mass audience.

And yet it has now reached that audience, presented in a simple, almost bare exhibition design that underscores the depth and delicacy of the photographs.

There are abandoned farms, crumbling ruins and empty roads, depicting an almost ghostly America where humanity seems to have disappeared. Then come the graffiti covering New York walls, filled with anger and a desire for revolution.

“I travel a lot, and I see a different America from the one people usually see,” Lange says. “Abandoned places, where there are houses, small towns, empty roads and factories.

“It moves me deeply because I think about the lives of the families who once lived there, especially those from farming backgrounds who were forced to become industrial workers and leave their land. I’m always thinking about what became of them. I call it morphic resonance, and I look for these images wherever I go.”

Then there are stolen moments, gestures charged with meaning: mothers with their children, homeless people asleep in makeshift beds, children at play and couples in love.

“I’ve always been fascinated by gesture,” Lange says. “And I think there are some truly moving images in the section devoted to it. They are the moments that happen by chance, the ones that make me pick up my camera and take a picture.”

All of it is strictly in black and white.

“I’ve never taken a color photograph or a digital photograph,” Lange says.

— © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.