Are you a native? Me, I'm a Midwest migrant, attracted by the West's mystical mountains, oceans and hot springs, to say nothing of its political independence and progressiveness. So region is special. Psychographic. Psychic even.
Tapping that, Gallery Homeland presents a show of photography, curated by Todd Johnson, Wild Wild West. Post the Civil War, the DC government sent war-trained photographers West, accompanying survey teams. Rousseau's transcendental philosophy's is represented in their work. It was thought that at, the time, that the West's sublime landscapes were proof positive of a god. So ironic that we have tried our best, in the mode of Walter Prescott Webb's thesis' to destroy it.
In Homeland's show, artists and their themes include: Mark Hooper who reenacts Lewis and Clark expedition scenes; Timothy Hursley imaging brothels of Nevada; Ethan Jackson: spaghetti Western, signs, symbols, and symptoms; David Levinthal: wild West, toy cowboys deconstructed historic icons; Marne Lucas: logging pin-up photographs; Richard Misrach: shows a photo of a military officer on a desert campout; Pipo Nguyen-duy: from Vietnam, now here, reprises formal portraits of 19th century Chinese immigrants who worked to construct Oregon's railroads, now himself the subject; Lori Nix: disaster photographs, blending truth and illusion; Shawn Records: ironic and anecdotal photographs of the suburbs; German Berthold Steinhilber shows cinematicly-lit nightime ghost towns.
So this is a show you should see, on its frontier opening. Gallery Homeland www.galleryhomeland.org Check their website for the showings until March. 2505 SE 11th x Division. 6PM-9. Free
