TOMORROW: OF LAND

OF LAND


featuring the photography of Lois Conner, Jed Devine, Jan Groover, Laura McPhee, Ray Mortenson, Victor Schrager, Steve Smith, and Jo Ann Walters, among others.

Curated by Kris Graves & Diana Scarpulla

Friday, October 16 through November 21, 2009

A Opening Reception of these works will be held on Friday, October 16th, from 6:00-8:30pm

+Kris Graves Projects is pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition: “OF LAND” which features eight remarkable and influential photographers. Lois Conner, Jed Devine, Jan Groover, Laura McPhee, Ray Mortenson, Victor Schrager, Steve Smith, and Jo Ann Walters have all used the medium of photography to interpret landscape. The exhibition will also include works by Peter Baker, Andreas Gehrke and Amy Finkelstein

The ideas and images in OF LAND are reminiscent of the work included in William Jenkins 1975 exhibition: New Topographics. Much like the photographers in that exhibition these seven photographers are interested in exploring and depicting the urban and suburban realities of landscapes altered by man. The work of these artists examines different aspects of looking at how the land has been manipulated throughout time. These artists depict landscape from a variety of approaches and with varying techniques to bring together a diverse display of land.

JED DEVINE is known for constructing images with an elegant sensibility and great passion. The photographs that are featured in OF LAND are panoramas made from joined medium format negatives picturing both rural and urban American vistas.

STEVE SMITH has recently been documenting the transition of the western landscape into suburbia. Working in both Utah and Nevada, Smith has made photographs that are not only aesthetically pleasing but that possess a hint of humor in their juxtaposition of unnatural objects set within the natural.

LOIS CONNER is interested in photographing urban development and culture any where from Brooklyn to Shanghai and the American west. Photographing with a 7”x17” format banquet camera she creates elongated images allowing the subject to describe it’s environment with great detail.

JO ANN WALTERS has always been intrigued and inspired with the subtlety of the world around her. Her attention to detail and a muted color palette create a beautiful combination for describing the bleak midwestern winters that her images portray. These rural and industrial sites that she has documented are representative of what the landscape is evolving into throughout the world.

In his series DIE MARK the German photographer ANDREAS GEHRKE explores the aesthetic character of the cultural landscape of the German federal state of Brandenburg. Like in his other body of work, Gehrke documents an atmosphere of the in-between: The traditional architectural profile of the cultural landscape of Brandenburg is no longer existent while the projected is not yet fulfilled; traces of past and future functionality blend into each other.

OF LAND will be on view during regular gallery hours, Tuesday through Saturday, 1:00-6:00pm and by appointment. For further information, please do not hesitate to contact the gallery at 212.796.7558 or email us at: krisgravesprojects@gmail.com