"Lake Las Vegas 2010-2012 20. 'Casa Palermo' Lake Las Vegas Homes Looking Southwest, Henderson, Nevada"
2010
Pigment print mounted on aluminum
40 x 50 inches
Edition of 5
I recently visited Hosfelt Gallery's impressive new space, currently home to "Private Frontiers," a two person show featuring works by Brooklyn-based painter Chris Ballantyne and San Francisco-based photographer Michael Light. According to the press release, the two artists "have been in dialogue for the past year to develop work that examines the human urge to stake territory and its more absurd manifestations on the American landscape." Whatever the specifics of the artists' conversation, Ballantyne's paintings are a terrific compliment to Light's large-format aerial photographs. Exhibited on their own in the expansive Hosfelt loft, Ballantyne's colorful and occasionally whimsical works would risk being swallowed up as bittersweet morsels. Hanging alongside Light's grand photographs, though, Ballantyne's modestly-sized pictures comport themselves especially well; their affability and humor endure, but undercurrents of earnestness and melancholy, too easily missed if exhibited on their own in so airy a space, are amply felt.
"Not a Thru Street"
2011
Acrylic on panel
12 x 16 inches
Likewise, in the company of Ballantyne's works, the wry humor and conceptual nuance of Light's photographs is made more perceptible. From Light's perch (a lightweight, high-winged, and doorless airplane that he pilots), the interventions of mankind on the landscape appear at once less and more offensive, a result of the shift in perspective and scale. These are complicated, awesome pictures, imposing, yet understated enough to invite a multiplicity of readings.
"Lake Las Vegas 2010-2012 14. Future Homesites of 'The Falls' at Lake Las Vegas, Henderson, Nevada"
2011
Pigment print mounted on aluminum
40 x 50 inches
Edition of 5
The terraced Nevada desert landscape pictured in "Lake Las Vegas 2010-2012 14. Future Homesites of 'The Falls' at Lake Las Vegas, Henderson, Nevada" might be mistaken for an ancient, ziggurat-like structure, excavated by archeologists. It could also be an ambitious new Earthwork undertaken by the likes of Michael Heizer. In actuality, as the picture's title reveals, it is an unfinished residential development project. Knowing this, we're liable to shrink from the photograph, filled with righteous indignation about our species' profligacy and environmental thoughtlessness. Even as we do so, it's worth noting that we'd almost certainly react differently were we looking at a photo of an archeological site or contemporary Earthwork heroics.
"Future 'Highland Vista Age-Qualified Master Planned Community' Homes by RFMS Looking Southeast, Mesquite, Nevada; 2010"
2010
Pigment print mounted on aluminum
59 x 74 inches
Edition of 2
In "Future 'Highland Vista Age-Qualified Master Planned Community' Homes by RFMS Looking Southeast, Mesquite, Nevada; 2010," we look down on unfinished roads to nowhere, a stark hieryglyph on the desert surface. The photograph is as aesthetically compelling as its subject is ludicrous. In another of Light's pictures, we see an absurd mirage, a relatively verdant luxury development abutting sun-faded desert mountains. The developers named this gated luxury living community "Casa Palermo," after the Sicilian seaside city. We rightly shake our heads at the environmental irresponsibility (and lugubrious name) of such a venture, but when we contemplate "Casa Palermo" in the context of geologic time, considering the action of tectonics and climate over millennia, we might, for a moment, view the gated community as representative of our species' tenuous prospect.
Indeed, as I wrote of Light's work in 2007, the photographs "encourage us to question conventional notions of natural and artificial, and also to consider these environments with respect to the full sweep of time and scale." Spend enough time in a gallery filled with Light's photographs and book works, and the pictured developments and mines will begin to call to mind tissue slices or cell cross-sections. The forms and processes never seem benign, and sometimes -- too often -- appear malignant, but they highlight the vain futility of mere value judgments. Light's work reminds us that it's too easy (even dangerous) to label humanity a cancer and throw up our hands; the responsible thing is to regulate -- to direct and control -- the ontogenesis, and to understand that it is, itself, a natural phenomenon.
"Edge of the Black Thunder Coal Mine, 9% of American Supply, Wright, WY"
2007
Pigment print mounted on aluminum
40 x 50 inches
Edition of 5
"Pass Through"
2011
Acrylic on panel
12 x 16 inches
Image credit: all images, courtesy the artists and Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco
