Mark Ruwedel, Denver and Rio Grande Western #4, 1996.
I have just uploaded three recently published texts to my personal website. Two, a review of books on the relationship between man and nature and a review of a documentary about shopping malls, were mentioned here last month. The third is my review of “Westward the Course of Empire,” Mark Ruwedel’s recent New York solo exhibition, which was published in the April issue of Artforum. Here is the opening paragraph:
At the conclusion of the Civil War in 1865, there were 35,085 miles of operable railroad track in the United States. Eight years later that number had doubled. Midway between these dates, on May 10, 1869, a golden spike joined the rails of the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific railroads at Promontory Summit, Utah. It was near this site that photographer Mark Ruwedel was inspired to begin his series “Westward the Course of Empire,” 1994–2007. This exhibition brought together seventy-five of the small black-and-white photographs, which document the railroad lines, now abandoned, that knit together our country (and Canada) in an unprecedented wave of industrial ambition and governmental largesse. For centuries to come we will be untangling the ramifications of the historical process he charts.
To read the rest, click here. To see additional images from the exhibition, as well as read the press release, click here. Last summer, Yale University Press published a book of Ruwedel’s photographic series, with an essay by Jock Reynolds, director of the Yale University Art Gallery. It is a remarkable book; I recommend it.
Tags: American West, Artforum, exhibition review, landscape photography, Mark Ruwedel, railroads
April 17, 2009 at 9:31 am
d’oh, I’ve been meaning to email you about that Rudewel book. awesome. and nice review, too.