MIDDLESCAPES

WORK IN PROGRESS

Middlescapes tells the story of an imaginary place located in reality. In an inventory of utopias, materialized in lines of corn, barns, silos, and human forms, we are offered a place to reflect on a subtle interplay of history caught in an infinite loop—past futures, future pasts.

REFERENCE POINT #1

Middlescapes is in conversation with two American artistic traditions, in the context of today. The first — the euphoric spirit of the Precisionists of the early 20th century. Artists who were enthralled by the rush of modernity on the American landscape, constructing geometrical images not because their medium demanded it — nor as the reality of the seen — but to offer a speculative gloss over the everyday. Their subject matter at once reflecting a specific imaginary of progress, and the material embodiment of technology within society. In doing so they offer a speculative modern American vernacular.

REFERENCE POINT #2

The second, the post-war social documentary photographic movements, a kind of de-facto counter factual this euphoric imaginary. Image makers using the “literal” of the medium to offer powerfully descriptive stories. We see evidential realties that are deeply connected the very same modernity – now with the gloss brushed off. But there is a “trick of the eye” here too. The photographer cannot be a simple capturer of evidence. In their approach there is a hard truth and empathetic sensibility that allows for redemption for subject matter and society. And in this the establishment a critical American vernacular.

REFERENCE POINT #3