Home > VISUAL ARTS > A Considered View: The Photographs of Wayne Gudmundson

• SHARE
• Outlook
• ICAL
• PRINT
• Tell A Friend
• Feedback

• RSS

• Tell-a-friend
• Official web site
• Add to My Favorites

A Considered View: The Photographs of Wayne Gudmundson

Presented by State Historical Society of North Dakota at North Dakota Heritage Center

February 3-February 21, 2010

Be the first to submit a review/comment!
Add Review/Comment

Wayne Gudmundson has been photographing the upper Midwest for over 35 years and in that time created a body work offering a glimpse of life on the plains. Gudmundson's project of photographing the vast, beautiful, terrifying, sublime terrain has resulted in a body of work that helps to establish how sense of place creates our collective sense of identity. Gudmundson succeeds in recognizing and recording a vision of the terrain that is all too easily dismissed or simply missed outright by those not familiar.

Gudmundson sees the land in ways that most others do not. He seeks vistas that are not necessarily heroic or overtly romantic. Vistas that can speak to different kinds of truths, the multiple truths of people living on the land, marking the land, trying to meld with the land, and in the process, identifying with the land. Gudmundson photographs stand as testimonies to the upper Midwest's unique sense of place. Few, if any, artists have approached the upper Midwest landscape in such a manner.

Gudmundson's work is in major museum collections across the US, as well as Canada and Iceland, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The work in MoMA was selected by John Szarkowski, Director Emeritus of the Department of Photography at MoMA.

The exhibition catalogue will be co-published by the Plains Art Museum and the North Dakota State University's Institute of Regional Studies. The museum has commissioned Frank Gohlke and Thomas Isern to write exhibition catalogue essays.

Frank Gohlke turned to pursue photography after earning his MA in English literature from Yale University. Gohlke was one of the seminal photographers included in the landmark exhibition "New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape," curated by William Jenkins in 1975 for the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film. His photography was first shown at the Museum of Modern Art in 1978, and later in 1983, and 2005. Currently, the Amon Carter Museum is organizing a major retrospective of Gohlke's career.

Thomas Isern is a Professor of History at North Dakota State University. Isern's area of academic expertise is the history and folklore of the Great Plains. He is the author of five books, including Dakota Circle: Excursions on the True Plains. Dr. Isern is a former Fulbright Scholar and has also researched and written on the plains of Canada, New Zealand, and Australia.

The Gudmundson exhibition and catalogue will deepen the understanding of the upper Midwest landscape and establish the land's importance to our collective psyches.