Landmark: Yosemite Through the Lens of
Contemporary Landscape Photography
Binh Danh, Mark Klett & Byron Wolfe, Ted Orland, Millee Tibbs, and Jerry Uelsmann
Curated by Cara Goger & The Mariposa County Arts Council
DECEMBER 7, 2017 - JANUARY 27, 2018

SF Camerawork is proud to present Landmark: Yosemite Through the Lens of Contemporary Landscape Photography in celebration of the National Park Service centennial. This traveling exhibition, curated and organized by Cara Goger of the Mariposa County Arts Council, features the work of Binh Danh, Mark Klett & Byron Wolfe, Ted Orland, Millee Tibbs, and Jerry Uelsmann.

Landscape photography is uniquely wedded to the National Parks, and specifically to Yosemite.  Many famous photographers have had a storied history with Yosemite-- their work not only shares and celebrates the landscape’s grandeur, but also examines our relationship to wilderness and conservation. The contemporary artists selected for this exhibition bring new representation and varied voices to the genre of landscape photography, strengthening the rich relationship between the medium and Yosemite, while also blazing new conceptual and technical ground with their work.

BINH DANH, renowned for his elegant use of antiquated photographic processes, uses the daguerreotype in his ongoing Yosemite project. The resulting jewel-like photographs of Yosemite’s grandiose landscape also allow viewers to see their own mirrored reflection on the image’s surface. This juxtaposition is especially important for Danh, a Vietnamese-American artist, whose work addresses the relationships between immigrants, the American landscape, and identity.

MARK KLETT & BYRON WOLFE’s collaborative panoramic images combine historic photographs by Ansel Adams, Carleton Watkins, Eadweard Muybridge, and Edward Weston.  The resulting composite images visually connect various points across time, creating an artistic rendering of the landscape’s continual geological and photographic progression.

TED ORLAND, who in his early career served as assistant to photographer Ansel Adams, celebrates and satirizes visitors’ use and enjoyment of Yosemite through his aesthetically rich and intellectually clever images.

MILLEE TIBBS’ project Mountains + Valleys confronts the myth of the untouched landscape. Tibbs physically manipulates her photographs through a series of geometric folds and then re-photographs the altered images.

JERRY UELSMANN’s surrealist dreamscapes are composed of multiple negatives layered together in the dark room.  These images, created in the early 1990s when Uelsmann participated in Yosemite Museum’s Artist-in-Residency program, fuse the human form with the natural landscape.  These imaginative photographs have been instrumental in expanding the definition of landscape photography and inspiring generations of photographers.

This exhibition is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts “Imagine Your Parks” program, the Yosemite/Mariposa County Tourism Bureau, Michael Fry and Claudia Welsh, Carol Johnson, and Michelle Marco.

PUBLIC PROGRAMMING:
OPENING RECEPTION: Thursday, December 7, 2017, 6 - 8 PM
walkthrough with curator Cara Goger and exhibiting artist Millee Tibbs

ARTIST CONVERSATION: Thursday, January 25, 2018, 6 - 8 PM
with Binh Danh & Shelton Johnson

You may download a copy of the Press Release here.