American Photographers Exhibition at the New Mexico Museum of Art

Written by Vincent Stansfield Thursday, 19 May 2011 22:30

Santa Fe, NM.- The New Mexico Museum of Art presents "Earth Now: American Photographers and the Environment" on view until October 9th. The exhibition brings to the fore a group of nearly seventy contemporary photographs, many shown for the first time, to examine how American artists of our time are engaging with issues of environmental concern. This varied and lively group of photographs invites visitors to enjoy the visual pleasures of photography by masters as well as newcomers, as well as to ponder their own relationship to the landscape and their thinking about some of the present-day social issues in the context of an industrialized society—energy consumption, changing agricultural practices, waste management, land use. Using strategies such as beauty, humor, and horror to engage attention, these photographers provoke questions about the environment while pointing toward new directions such as local farming, new energy source technologies, green roofs, and a renewed connection with the landscapes we inhabit.

Ansel Adams and Eliot Porter, pioneers in landscape photography, were working at a time when a greater awareness and growing concern for the environment was emerging. These two men whose love for their subject, so breathtakingly captured in their work, were sympathetic to the nascent environmental movement and allowed their art to be used to further the cause.  Earth Now starts with a suite of works by these two artists and moves on to a group of younger landscape photographers who came of age in the 1970s – Robert Adams, Robert Glenn Ketchum, and Mark Klett – using their powerful images as subtle advocacy. While many of these artists are working in New Mexico and the western United States – including  Michael Berman, Joann Brennan, Dornith Doherty, Chris Enos, Greg Macgregor, Carlan Tapp, Victor Masayesva, and Sharon Stewart – others represent cities ranging from Seattle to New York and San Francisco to Atlanta.


A highlight of the show will be images from brand-new bodies of work by Subhankar Banerjee, Daniel Handal, Brad Temkin, and Phil Underdown. Exhibition curator and Curator of Photography at the New Mexico Museum of Art, Katherine Ware had this to say about her concept for the exhibition; “After talking with the photographers about what they have to say and why they do this work really moved and inspired me. What I most want to highlight in this exhibition is their vision, their commitment, their way of connecting with the human spirit. Art isn’t a luxury; it is about making sense of life, understanding the world we inhabit. Earth Now does not present the viewer with easy answers, instead a lot of questions. These images require the participation of viewers who are engaged by them and continue the conversation.”

The New Mexico Museum of Art was founded in 1917 as the Art Gallery of the Museum of New Mexico. Housed in a spectacular Pueblo Revival building designed by I. H. and William M. Rapp, it was based on their New Mexico building at the Panama-California Exposition (1915). The museum's architecture inaugurated what has come to be known as "Santa Fe Style." For nearly 100 years, the Museum has celebrated the diversity of the visual arts and the legacy of New Mexico as a cultural crossroads by collecting and exhibiting work by leading artists from New Mexico and elsewhere. This tradition continues today with a wide-array of exhibitions with work from the world’s leading artists. The New Mexico Museum of Art brings the art of New Mexico to the world and the art of the world to New Mexico. The museum’s collection spans the historic art colonies of Taos and Santa Fe of the past hundred years to cutting-edge contemporary art from around the region and the world. Highlights of the museum’s 20,000 works of art include extensive collections of the Cinco Pintores; the Taos Society of Artists; the largest collection of Gustave Baumann; the Lucy Lippard Collection; major American photographers, including the Jane Reese Williams Collection of women photographers; new media, including video installations; and an important collection of Georgia O’Keeffe paintings. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.nmartmuseum.org/

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