The ‘American Dream’ is a concept deeply ingrained in the cultural and historical fabric of the United States. It embodies the belief that anyone, regardless of their background or circumstances of birth, can achieve prosperity, success, and upward social mobility through hard work, determination, and perseverance.

Fed into the country’s collective psyche via movies, television and advertising, the upwardly mobile notion of suburban living typically includes the attainment of financial stability and owning a home, often with a pool in the back yard and space for a couple of cars in the garage; creating a vision that the American Dream generates opportunities for personal fulfilment, advancement and happiness.

A new exhibition at Barcelona‘s Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB), Suburbia. Building the American Dream, traces the cultural history of a lifestyle ideal that has been endlessly reproduced in media, and analyses the validity and the most controversial aspects of its urban planning model. It shows how the lifestyle was sold by fiction and the entertainment industry; how suburbs were built using the Fordist assembly-line production logic to create 11 million single-family homes fitted with all kinds of electrical domestic appliances following the return of soldiers from World War II and the subsequent baby boom; how a dream became a residential nightmare when the idea of a safe, healthy, happy place was gradually contaminated with fears, terrors and paranoias; and how in post-suburbia the environmental impact of pollution effected the world.

Curated by Philipp Engel with geographer Francesc Muñoz collaborating as adviser in the final section of the exhibition, Suburbia. Building the American Dream presents the work of creators Jessica Chou, Gregory Crewdson, Thomas Doyle, Gerard Freixes, Rodrigo Fresán, Gabriele Galimberti, Weronika Gesicka, Benjamin Grant, Todd Hido, Joel Meyerowitz, Matthias Müller, Blanca Munt, Alberto Ortega, Bill Owens, Sheila Pree Bright, León Siminiani, Todd Solondz, Amy Stein, Greg Stimac, Angela Strassheim, Deborah Stratman, Ed & Deanna Templeton, Kate Wagner and Christopher Willan, who, from many different points of view, help us to take a critical look at the famed American way of life.

Suburbia is presented as paradise, as an eerie backdrop for haunting emptiness, as a place where all that is wrong with the country collides, and as a blueprint for other nations to adopt. Featuring historical material, period documentaries, photographs, paintings, films and series, novels and magazines, works of art and everyday objects, the exhibition places us in the mental paradise of the suburb and invites us to rethink the value of the city and public space in a world where the dream of living in a house with a swimming pool is still very much alive.

A thought-provoking, captivating, and at times moving exhibition, Suburbia. Building the American Dream offers a splendid immersion into an uneasy American ideal, and is on show at The CCCB until 8 September 2024.

@cccb_barcelona

Gabriele Galimberti,
Joel, Lynne, Paige and Joshua (44, 43, 5 and 11 years old), central Texas, 2021
Courtesy of the artist.

Angela Strassheim,
Untitled (Elsa). Series Left Behind, 2005
Courtesy of the artist.

Alberto Ortega,
Annunciation, 2023
Courtesy of the artist.

Christopher Willan,
Sant Quirze del Vallès, 2023
Courtesy of the artist.