The Valley

Since 1988, Larry Sultan has photographed on porn sets in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles--the Silicon(e) Valley of the porn industry. The result is a dense series of pictures of middle-class homes invaded by the porn industry. His lens focuses on pedestrian details--a piece of half-eaten pie, dirty linens in a heap, "actors" taking a break--that offer clues to a bizarre other-world. The lush and intricate images adroitly play with artifice and reality, adding up to rich, elliptical narratives that circle around the concepts of "home" and "desire." An ambiguous meditation on suburbia and domestic life, its hopes and desperations, The Valley presents richly layered images that open up new perspectives for photography in their innovative combination of the staged and the documentary.