Re-SITE-ing the West: Contemporary Photographs from the Permanent Collection
58 records
March 4, 2007 – June 3, 2007
Subverting the traditions of Western landscape art, these photographs from the museum’s permanent collection reveal the West as a site for contemporary artists’ visual and conceptual explorations. As a complement to the exhibition The Modern West: American Landscapes, 1890–1950, Re-SITE-ing continues the dialogue about—and affirms the enduring mystique of—the place we call the West.
By the 1970s, America’s postwar optimism had faded. Anxiety about potential nuclear annihilation grew as the cold war raged. With its weapons laboratories and test sites, the West was implicated in this new chapter of human history. Ravenous consumption sparked by American affluence further transformed the mythical guise of the Western landscape. Artists soon began to investigate our contradictory appetites for creation and destruction. Reflecting on the realities of rapid development and exploring the terrain as object, the artists in this exhibition celebrate the West as a site in and of itself, with imposed illusions, allusions, and romantic pretensions laid to rest.
- Melani Petrushkin, Eve Schillo, Tim Wride - Photography department (2007)
Subverting the traditions of Western landscape art, these photographs from the museum’s permanent collection reveal the West as a site for contemporary artists’ visual and conceptual explorations. As a complement to the exhibition The Modern West: American Landscapes, 1890–1950, Re-SITE-ing continues the dialogue about—and affirms the enduring mystique of—the place we call the West.
By the 1970s, America’s postwar optimism had faded. Anxiety about potential nuclear annihilation grew as the cold war raged. With its weapons laboratories and test sites, the West was implicated in this new chapter of human history. Ravenous consumption sparked by American affluence further transformed the mythical guise of the Western landscape. Artists soon began to investigate our contradictory appetites for creation and destruction. Reflecting on the realities of rapid development and exploring the terrain as object, the artists in this exhibition celebrate the West as a site in and of itself, with imposed illusions, allusions, and romantic pretensions laid to rest.
- Melani Petrushkin, Eve Schillo, Tim Wride - Photography department (2007)
