Rank 'n File, Life and Death for the American Underclass

Rank 'n File, Life and Death for the American UnderclassThe subjects in Rank N File are the working poor, the migrants, the incarcerated, the unwed mothers, the homeless vets, the drug addicts, and the rest of the poverty line warriors who make up half of the American population. Their individual stories are largely tales of defeat, dreams that faded, lovers who left or died, illnesses that wrecked livelihoods, hopes that live on, and resentments that never die. Abels portraits, crackling with kinetic

The subjects in Rank ÔN File are the working poor, the migrants, the incarcerated, the
unwed mothers, the homeless vets, the drug addicts, and the rest of the poverty-line
warriors who make up half of the American population. Their individual stories are
largely tales of defeat, dreams that faded, lovers who left or died, illnesses that
wrecked livelihoods, hopes that live on, and resentments that never die. AbelÕs portraits,
crackling with kinetic pattern and anatomical celebration (I absolutely love his drawings),
eagerly betray his kinship with these people. His craftsmanship in delineating the
unlucky reveals that his aim is not to fetishize the poor and working classes as an
anthropological study, but to remind us, as so many collectivists and humanists before
him have, that weÕre all one mishap away from telling the same story,
even if our gated communities with trimmed hedges convince us otherwise.
This is a portrait of us. - Ashley Holt