WOW: The Work of the Work
Roy McMakin: A Door Meant as Adornment
HEEL!
James Turrell: Knowing Light
Light Reign, James Turrell SkyspaceEmmet Gowin: Changing the Earth
Stroum Gallery
August 21, 2004 – October 31, 2004
In 1980, the eruption of Mount St. Helens moved photographer Emmet Gowin, renowned for his black-and-white aerial photographs, to charter a light plane and make pictures of the natural devastation at the eruption site. He returned to Washington State in 1986, where a flight over the Hanford Nuclear Reservation revealed to the artist “a pattern of relationships and a dark history of place and events” that altered his perception of the age in which he lives.
His first photograph of this abandoned nuclear reactor site is a key image in “Emmet Gowin: Changing the Earth”, which featured work created since this life-altering flight in 1986. In that year Gowin extended his aerial photography explorations of the American West to include military test sites, mining operations, golf courses, off-road vehicle courses, and toxic waste treatment facilities. He recorded the tension between natural splendors and the visible scars of our technological developments.