Into the Sunset

Feb 23, 2009 Posted by Diane
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Lately I have had an indescribably strong urge to saddle up a horse, climb on, and ride off in the direction of the nearest desert [2,019 miles West "as the crow flies"]. Well, to paint a more accurate picture, it's less of a urge more of a downright obsession; I listen to music with banjos, trains are my primary form of long distance transportation, and hell my consumption of beans has nearly tripled in the past month! What could possibly be the seed of such predilection? Could a single moment be defined? Yes.


Martin Kippenberger, Wenn Sie mit der Freiheit nicht klarkommen, versuchen Sie es doch mal mit Frauen, Teit I (If You Can't Handle Freedom, Try Seeing How Far You Can Get With Women, Part I) (detail), 1984, one of ten color photographs, each 19 7/8 x 13". © Estate of Martin Kippenberger/Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne.

This photo by Martin Kippenberger graced the cover of ArtForum International's February edition and the day it hit the newsstand is the day my heart left my body and took up shelter on the West coast. It's strange how just one photo can have such an effect on a person. Maybe it's the juxtaposition of the big fluffy sweater in the heat of the desert, or the inherent coolness of the canyon rock, or perhaps I'm just a softy for the long, solemn face of the horse, who knows.

Wednesday evening, I attended a lecture entitled, Creating a Market for Fine Art Photography in America, given at the University of Delaware by Frank Goodyear, the assistant curator of photography at the National Portrait Gallery. Goodyear told his story by centering around an extensive time line that outlined the progression and transformation of photography as an artistic medium, from birth date to present day. Throughout the lecture, Goodyear consistently referenced the works of Robert Adams, an American photographer who documents the impact that man-kind has on the landscape and environment especially the American West. That's right more photographs of the West!

Conveniently and coincidentally enough, The Museum of Modern Art beginning March 29 until June 8, 2009 will be hosting an exhibition titled Into the Sunset: Photography's Image of the American West. From the MoMA index:


Into the Sunset brings together over 120 photographs made by a variety of photographers. These works illustrate photography's role in popularizing ideas of the sublime landscape, Manifest Destiny, and the "land of opportunity," as well as describing a more complex vision of the West, one that addresses cultural dislocation, environmental devastation, and failed social aspirations. Organized thematically, Into the Sunset includes photographs dating from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries, incorporating a range of artistic strategies, motifs, and concerns, and featuring the work of approximately seventy photographers, including Robert Adams, John Baldessari, Dorothea Lange, Timothy O'Sullivan, Cindy Sherman, Joel Sternfeld, Edward Weston, and Carleton E. Watkins. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalog.


For over 150 years, the image of the west has been shaped by the photographs that bring the landscape to life for all us less fortunate who have yet to experience it in person, and now for two months the west will be on the east. If this isn't a sign I'm convinced that I wouldn't know what one would look like.




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