The Nevada Museum of Art houses an incredible collection of photographs. Culturally, they’re like photos of a messy kitchen: signifying bounty, waste, responsibility, hope and dread at the same time (that kitchen is heavy stuff). “The Altered Landscape, Carol Franc Buck Collection,” is almost nine hundred images large and includes the work of some very noteworthy photographers. A portion of them have been curated into this “Altered Landscapes” exhibition, along with an accompanying publication.
What’s clear is that we humans are everywhere– even places we don’t want or intend to be. It’s also a smart curatorial move on the part of NMA to keep the dialogue between art and the environment broad. This exhibit isn’t a celebration of nature per se, and it’s not an outright condemnation of human impact. Instead, what it seems to do, simply, is say: “Look. Look what we do.” And from there attempts to begin a conversation. “Altered Landscapes” will be on display until January 2012.
+ Altered Landscapes
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There is no more wilderness — almost everything, everywhere on this planet has been affected directly or indirectly by humans. Futurist Bruce Sterling put this idea forward at the recent A + E Conference at the Nevada Center for Art and Environment. Fittingly, that same weekend the Center debuted its photo exhibition “Altered Landscapes,” a collection of works by photographers documenting, examining, celebrating, and condemning our overwhelming impact on the planet. Above, Pipo Nguyen-duy’s “Lazy…
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The scope of the exhibition covers everything from mining, development, and munitions research to the simple and strange, like a deer getting caught in a barbed wire fence.
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While it’s easy to look at a lot of human impact as negative, or catastrophic, the exhibition paints a picture of complexity.
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That’s a fake coyote. But the sentiment strikes an eerie chord. In Amy Stein’s “Howl,” the animal cries at a false moon– the streetlight of a parking lot.
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The exhibition takes place on the top floor of the Nevada Museum of Art, which also houses the Center for the Art and Environment, a very rare an unique institution.
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Most of the photographs are pulled from the museum’s signature collection, entitled, appropriately, “The Altered Landscape, Carol Franc Buck Collection.” This collection includes almost nine hundred photographs.
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The exhibition will be accompanied by a big, heavy book– a publication examining the depth of the collection and the extent to which humans have altered the planet.
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