The walls of the Greenberg Gallery on the 57th Street in New York, which have recently hosted prints by Vivian Meier, Bruce Davidson, Edward Burtynsky, will host until January 18 the black and white images of an unexpected author: Jessica Lange, protagonist of legendary films including King Kong, Tootsie, The Postman always rings twice, Jessica Lange.

The exhibition, which consists of photos taken between 2011 and 2018, is a tribute to the journey that Lange has made countless times during her childhood. Highway 61 begins in the northeast of Minneapolis and runs 1,600 miles along the Mississippi River through the American Midwest and south, crossing eight states to New Orleans. “Photography is a great counterpoint to cinema,” says Lange in presenting the exhibition, “because it’s a private and lonely experience. It is like writing or painting, something you can do yourself. Acting is a codependent art form and the actor has no control. And cinema certainly informs the decision to photograph something. I’m attracted to situations full of a dramatic feeling in terms of lighting, background, the presence of people, the way someone stands up.”

Born and raised in Cloquet, Minnesota, Jessica Lange studied photography at the University of Minnesota after winning a scholarship. Lange started taking pictures in the 1990s, when her partner, dramatist and actor Sam Shepard, gave her a Leica. The exhibition coincides with PowerHouse’s publication of her fourth book Highway 61, dedicated to Shepard.