Landscapes and Cityscapes Move Inside at Art Museum

>>> Reflections of greatness--Natural landscapes, and interior "landscapes," including this view of Elvis's Graceland home, mingle in the art museum's new photography exhibition.

The art museum's new exhibition celebrates the American natural and manmade environment, from Yosemite National Park's natural splendor and Manhattan's "forest" of skyscrapers to the opulent-tacky interiors of Elvis Presley's home. Eight photographers' views of the world around them are on display through March 14 in the Photographers on Location: Landscapes and Cityscapes from the National Museum of American Art exhibition.

Each artist's approach reveals developments in photography from the early part of this century to the present while exploring the themes of wilderness, industrialization, urban change, and suburban sprawl within the context of a specific place. The works of Berenice Abbott, Ansel Adams, Joe Deal, William Eggleston, Robbert Flick, Frank Gohlke, Karen Halvorson, and Charles Walcott make up the exhibition.

From its beginning in the nineteenth century, American landscape photography concerned itself with more than presenting vistas in the European romantic tradition. In a culture born of struggle for political and cultural independence as well as dominion over the land, to "capture" the landscape in photographs meant to go beyond a superficial description of place. American photographers, mindful of the places where they live and work, have tried to describe the effects of their surroundings on experience--personal and, in a larger sense, collective.