A new exhibition of American photography opens this Saturday. Time in the West: Photographs by Mark Klett & Byron Wolfe and Mark Ruwedel features the work of three contemporary photographers investigating the visual and historical legacy of the American West.
The works by Klett & Wolfe are just stunning and so interesting. Trained as a geologist, Mark Klett established his artistic perspective on the Western American landscape as the chief photographer for the Rephotographic Survey Project in the late 1970s. This project re-examined over 120 19th-century Western survey photographs, including works by Timothy O’Sullivan, Andrew Russell and William Henry Jackson. Klett and his team found the precise locations of those views and then rephotographed the same scenes. Comparisons between the photographs reveal changes that had occurred in the intervening century.
Mark Klett will visit the Nelson-Atkins in November for a one-day forum and a special gallery walk.
It is always a great treat to have a living artist represented in our collection in the gallery to talk about his or her art. Be sure to visit the exhibition and come back for these special programs.