Photos have unconcealed visible quietude

“Kerstin Enjoying the Wind, East of Keota, Colorado” (detail), 1969, printed c. 1977, gelatin silver print, image: 7 1/2 × 7 7/16 inches, sheet: 9 13/16 × 7 15/16 inches. National Gallery of Art, Washington, Pepita Milmore Memorial Fund and Gift of Robert and Kerstin Adams. © Robert Adams, Courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco.

RENO, NV (PNAN) – Showing at the Nevada Museum of Art through Sunday, January 29, 2023, American Silence: The Photographs of Robert Adams is an exhibition of compelling, provocative, and highly influential photographs that show the wonder and fragility of the American landscape, its inherent beauty, and the inadequacy of our response to it by Robert Adams (b.1937).

Divided into three sections: The Gift, Our Response and Tenancy, the exposition features some 175 pictures from 1965 to 2015 that further celebrates the art of this seminal American photographer, who for a half-century has explored the reverential way he looks at the world around him and the almost observable silence of his work.

Capturing the sense of peace and harmony created through what Adams calls “the silence of light” that can be seen on the prairie, in the woods, and by the ocean, American Silence and other images on view question our moral silence to the desecration of that beauty by consumerism, industrialization, and lack of environmental stewardship.

The exhibition also includes works from not only the artist’s most important projects, but also lesser-known ones that depict suburban sprawl, strip malls, highways, homes, and stores, as well as rivers, skies, the prairie, and the ocean. While these photographs ‘mourn’ the ravages that have been inflicted on the land; they also pay homage to what remains.

For more details on this exhibit and other current exhibits and programming see: www.nevadaart.org and a National Gallery of Art introduction video on the show click: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0dDMeBqpqA

Add Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.