Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Landscape

"I make landscapes, or cityscapes as the case may be, to study the process of settlement as well as to work out for myself what the kind of picture (or photograph) we call a 'landscape' is. This permits me also to recognize the other kinds of pictures with which it has necessary connections, or the other genres that a landscape might conceal within itself." -Jeff Wall


"The Landscape and the Street," from "The Photographer of Modern Life," by Kerry Brougher.

MOCA curator, Kerry Brougher, relates Wall's work thematically and aesthetically to painting, dissecting the evolution of his work into "the modern and problematic landscape."


My work with landscape in some ways bares a connection to photographers who have documented or commented on the process of industrialization, or the encroachment of modern industrial culture on the landscape. In a world already reshaped by industrialization, I find myself attracted to places that have not been maintained, spending time in alleys looking for evidence of the persevering landscape burgeoning up through the cracks, peering over fences to catch a glimpse of someone's personal eden just beyond their garbage bins.

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