Lee Friedlander, Montana, 2008
I grew up in a state bordering Montana and am always surprised at how few times I have visited and how little I know about it. My first memory of Montana was crossing into the border from Northern Idaho and stopping at a small convenience store to buy ingredients for S'mores when I was 12. That night while camping, the graham crackers, marshmallows, and chocolate bars made an appearance. After biting into a delectable looking dessert, we realized it tasted funny. After a few minutes, someone thought to look at the expiration date on the box of crackers and noticed they had expired six months before my birth, 12 years earlier. For many years, my experience with Montana was associated with (very) stale graham crackers.
In the summer of 1995, I traversed slightly further into the state by visiting Glacier National Park with a friend from undergrad. I remember high snow along the road in the middle of July, a hike above the treeline, and the Blackfeet Indian Reservation to the East. I was also impressed with the scale of Flathead Lake.
Perhaps I had also visited Montana with numerous trips to Yellowstone but it is hard to know what states overlap the park when there are no "Welcome to Idaho" or "Welcome to Montana" signs in the middle of nature when the park is predominantly located in Wyoming.
When I moved to Indiana, my father and I traversed the southern portion of the state in an effort to avoid driving through Nebraska from Oregon. We drove up through Idaho Falls into Dillon, Butte, Bozeman, and Billings before heading south to Sheridan, Wyoming. The most meaningful trip and incidentally, my last visit, was driving from Indiana to Vancouver, BC on a 71 day road trip in 2008. I don't remember much of I-94 arriving from North Dakota but I distinctively remember seeing mountains for the first time in 10 months and their white capped peaks on the horizon brought tears to my eyes.
Chris Toalson, Madison Valley, Montana, 2009
Evelyn Cameron, Buttes in the Badlands of Eastern Montana, c. 1900
Ian Van Coller, From Growing Up Montana: Lake Louise
Ian van Coller, From Growing Up Montana: Iceboats
Montana is Big Sky Country. It's a land with limited cellphone reception, taxidermy, skiing resorts, fly fishing ("A River Runs Through It") and that's all I can think of right off hand. That will change as of today. My trip occurs during a season I've never experienced in Montana. Somehow boots, a puffy coat, hat, long underwear and a big scarf all crammed in my carry-on in addition to clothes. Bozeman and my Visiting Artist gig at MSU - here I come.
Eyewitness Italy because I couldn't borrow Scott's forever, Friedlander because interlibrary loan didn't last longer than three weeks, Land Arts of the American West because I kept buying it for other people and never acquired my own (and the New York Times article made me nervous it would go out of print soon).
Order of operation: before the summer begins - go back home.
Lee Friedlander, Western United States, 1975
In the meantime: the weekend before utter chaos and no time on my hands will entail (final critiques and grading commence Monday):
1) Finish painting and sanding the Nine Fake Cake & Nine Bodies of Water frames
2) Buy matboard in Indy for above
3) Finish editing the remaining 12 Marilyn photographs because I can always hit the Print button while grading...
4) Revel in the fact that I turned in 12 more applications for exhibitions for the cakes last week. Current status: 32 pending & 4 rejections. Come on two acceptances!
Ai WeiWei, Study of Perspective - San Marco, 1995-2003
As one of many people thinking about the disappearance of Ai WeiWei lately and threatening to boycott anything Chinese (see below), it's due time to post these images of photographers interjecting their presence in front of the viewfinder.
In Study of Perspective, WeiWei traveled to national monuments – from the Basilica di San Marco in Venice, to the White House in Washington, D.C., to Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. He then shoots his own arm extended in front of the camera lens as he gives each site the finger. It's not about measurement and scale as so many artists have explored in the past (Ken Josephson below) but of a critique of politics, nationalism, and culture.
Ken Josephson, Wyoming, 1971
Nick Waplington, From Other Edens, 1994
Nick Waplington, Detail from Other Edens, 1994
Lee Friedlander, 1997
It's also curious to note that the photographers above are intrinsically tied to travel - occupying/exploring/claiming the landscape behind them.
Robert Voit, Industrial Drive, Flagstaff, AZ 2006
Richard Misrach, Phoenix 6:20 AM, 1994
Mark Klett, Desert Citizens, 1989-90
Stephen Shore
Edmund Teske, 1943
Jim Dow, Marilyn Motel, Tucson, 1980
William Larson, Tucson Gardens, 1980
Stephen Shore, Tucson
Frederick Sommer, Arizona Landscape, 1943
Lee Friedlander, Arizona, 1997
William Wegman, 2007
Martin Parr
Gerhard Richter, Seascape (Cloudy), 1969
Alvin Langdon Coburn, The Cloud, 1912
Gustave Le Gray, 1857
Tara Donovan, Untitled, 2003
Laura d'Ors, Untitled, 2008
Jacob Hashimoto, Clouds, 2002
Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Untitled, 1991
Nan Goldin, Sky on the Twilight of Philippine's Death, 1997
Lee Friedlander, Maria Friedlander, 1969
Olafur Eliasson, I Believe, 1992
John Baldessari, Cigar Smoke to Match Clouds That are the Same (by Sight-Side View), 1972-73
Robert Adams, Colorado Springs, 1979
Thomas Alleman, Altadena, 2009
Genevieve Cadieux, Sky/Body, 1992
