AmericanDreams_GalleryGuide

American Dreams or Imagined Lands? Jack Spencer Terri Loewenthal Christa Blackwood Mark Klett & Byron Wolfe

American Dreams or Imagined Lands brings together five artists and over seven projects to explore the ways in which American photographers can re-imagine Western landscapes and history. Jack Spencer Jack Spencer’s series, This Land: An American Portrait, Apariciones and Gestures and Portraits, can be seen in this exhibition. Spencer’s unique darkroom process brings an otherworldly quality to his work that can be equally wistful or unnerving depending on his composition. Spencer’s series This Land: An American Portrait explores his feelings about post 9/11 America. Darkened skies and his use of color inform the viewer of Spencer’s struggle to reconcile his feeling for a political landscape he was increasingly troubled by with “a national wave of nostalgia and jingoism.” While his approach to This Land began as an experiment in the Jack Spencer, Taos Gorge, New Mexico, 2008, pigment print, darkroom, as a technical artist, Loan from the Collection of Jeffrey Hugh Newman Spencer is equally adept at using both the traditional and digital darkroom to alter his shots in the quest to evoke emotional responses in his viewers: “I started making the darkroom prints, and for some reason I started distressing them — tearing the edges, gouging the surfaces, splattering them with caustic substances. It did occur to me that I was angry about America. I continued on and eventually developed a working method of distressing that included glazing with pigments and oleopasto, also adding asphaltum to the surface.” The series continued, eventually transforming into an homage for America in all its complex pain and beauty. Jack Spencer, Wounded Knee, 2003, pigment print, Loan from the Collection of Jeffrey Hugh Newman

Terri Loewenthal As a teenager, Terri Loewenthal was a “straight-A student athlete,” competing at the national level. Photography would come later in her life, following the sudden loss of her home shortly after completing college. While only a few months into a career, Loewenthal’s residence burned down due to faulty wiring. Loewenthal was able to escape “with nothing but a towel and my car in the driveway.” Looking for a change, Loewenthal borrowed her mother’s 35mm manual Canon camera and began to travel the West. Looking to move beyond the saturation of images from daily life and social media, Loewenthal turned her camera Terri Loewenthal, Psychscape 600 (Arizona Hot Springs, AZ), 2018, pigment print, Courtesy the artist and Jackson Fine Art, Atlanta GA to the Western Landscape and created a series of photographs that capture the feelings, emotion and wonder of experiencing the land. Thus the series Psychscapes was born. To create her colorful images, Loewenthal shoots a single-exposure photograph composed directly “in camera” using undisclosed techniques. Loewenthal approaches photography with the care of the historic great nature photographers and the creativity of American expressionist painters. Her photographs use vibrant color and mirrors to re-imagine the land as not just a thing to see, but a feeling to experience. Terri Loewenthal, Psychscape 52 (North Peak, CA), 2018, pigment print, Courtesy the artist and Jackson Fine Art, Atlanta GA

Christa Blackwood Christa Blackwood combines tradition and innovation with her works, shown in her hand-pulled photogravures and wet-plate collodion prints — both processes tied to the emergence of photography in America. For this exhibition, Blackwood’s photogravures of Western landscapes show iconic scenery and a style that is reminiscent of early nineteenth-century Western photographers. Blackwood uses a type of photo-making that was first developed in the mid- nineteenth century called the photogravure. This process uses a copper plate that is coated with a light-sensitive layer. The copper plate is then exposed to a film positive and the plate is “developed” in a chemical batch. This creates Christa Blackwood, Santa Elena, 2013, photogravure, an etched metal panel that can Courtesy the artist and Candela Gallery then be inked and used to print photographs. Blackwood chose this process of printmaking due to its use by early photographers, the originators of the nude in landscape genre. She also found the process more engaging than digital prints, “you’re actually etching into the paper in those processes. You’re more mark-making. It’s more complex and not as flat as some digital prints.” As a conceptual artist, Christa Blackwood, Saucido, 2013, photogravure, Blackwood’s ideas about her Courtesy the artist and Candela Gallery series are just as important as their visual qualities. This means that the process of making photogravures, their historical connection to the nineteenth-century landscape photography that included nude women, and Blackwood’s own personal history as an artist are all key to appreciating the full complexity of her work.

Mark Klett & Byron Wolfe Mark Klett’s process focuses on the temporal nature of the landscape itself, and involves creating new works that harken back to earlier landscape photographers – sometimes literally allowing Klett to walk in the footsteps of earlier artists. Klett’s first major project, Rephotographic Survey Project, followed the movements of nineteenth-century geological survey photographers to recapture and recontextualize their photographs. While a faculty member at Arizona State University, Klett began Third Views – Second Sights with graduate students from Arizona State University, which included Byron Wolfe. Over the years, the two artists have continued their collaboration, each bringing scientific rigor and playfulness to Reconstructing the View. Mark Klett and Byron Wolfe, 35 Grand Canyon To achieve their photographs, Klett and National Park. East from Hopi Point 1682, 2010, Courtesy the artists and Lisa Sette Gallery Wolfe use panoramic stitching, which requires many photographs shot in a grid pattern that are then “stitched” together in the digital darkroom. Unlike with traditional large format photography, this digital process creates works that can capture even more of the landscape and print equally large prints. After creating these large images, the two artists then carefully place older works within the composition, matching elements to make the pieces fit, almost like a puzzle. Past and present are then combined into one print and the viewer is able to see how well past artists captured Mark Klett and Byron Wolfe, Rock Formations on the Road to Lee’s Ferry, AZ, the landscape. 2008, Courtesy the artists and Lisa Sette Gallery Left Inset: William Bell, 1872. Plateau North of the Colorado River near the Paria. (Courtesy National Archives) Right Inset: William Bell, 1872. Headlands North of the Colorado River. (Courtesy National Archives)

Imagined Lands From each of these artists we see images of the West influenced not just by the artists’ own portfolios and skills, but by their engagement with the history of American Photography itself. Imagined landscapes are not just ways to see the land, they are ways in which we look at our shared past. Special thanks to Jeffery Newman, Andrew Smith, Claire Lozier, Jackson Fine Art, Lisa Sette Gallery, Andrew Smith Gallery, and Candela Gallery.