Joel Sternfeld
Wet n' Wild Aquatic Theme Park, Orlando, Florida, September 1980 from American Prospects
Joel Sternfeld
Glen Canyon Dam, Page, Arizona, 1983 from American Prospects
Joel Sternfeld
Matanuska Glacier, Matanuska Valley, Alaska, July 1984 from American Prospects
I've chosen Joel Sternfeld's photographs Wet n' Wild Aquatic Theme Park, Orlando Florida, September 1890, Glen Canyon Dam, Arizona, 1983 and Matanuska Glacier, Matanuska Valley, Alaska July 1984 that all are part of his series American Prospects.
In Wet n' Wild Aquatic Theme Park the viewer can see an aquatic theme park that consists of swimming pool, a water slide, sunbathing areas and chairs with people everywhere enjoying their day. The theme park is surrounded by trees and a sky filled with clouds; the landscape before the inhabitation of humans in that area.
In Glen Canyon Dam the viewer can see a cemented area, a dam, a road with a baby in a cradle and tourists looking down at the dam. Behind the dam is again the landscape before human inhabitation; vast amounts of sand and a sky filled with clouds.
In Matanuska Glacier the viewer can see a road that is going down to the glacier and a set of mountains behind the glacier, and on top the mountains a sky filled with clouds; against the sky is telephone wires. Beside the road one can see a side line sign "Majestic View Estates" and their contact number.
In all of the photographs the visual approach stands the same; shot with a 8"x10" large format camera they show a large scale of the landscape, everything in the photographs is on focus and neutral coloured. Because the photographs are coloured with such a deadpan colour palette, they are making the viewer to think more critically and question, is something wrong with this view, and if so, what is it. When looking more closely to the photographs the view shiftens from a typical landscape photograph into a comment about the state of landscape in today's America (in this case, in 70s and 80s America) in relation what is was 100 to 150 years ago; unveiled and -populated space by humans.
In photographs Glen Canyon Dam and Wet n' Wild Aquatic Theme Park the nature landscape looks like it's only the backdrop of the photograph; almost as in the renaissance paintings. Obviously this is not the case; in the contrary the seemingly "backdrop" gives these photographs' their backstory, what the landscape was before and what it is now because of the human inhabitation - used for the purposes of human needs and leisure. When looking at Wet n' Wild Aquatic Theme Park one cannot but wonder, why do we need a water theme park in Florida, where there are lakes everywhere? In my opinion this is what Sternfeld wants the viewer take in consideration when looking at the seemingly innocent photograph of human leisure, to question our approach to nature within today's society and to remind us with the past's landscape.
Both photographs Glen Canyon Dam and Matanuska Glacier are taken in such a places where commissioned photographers (Ansel Adams, Carleton Watkins, Andrew J. Russell, William Henry Jackson, etc.) before him took photographs of landscape before human inhabitation in those areas in America. Their photographs were either about conquering the wild landscape for human inhabitation or finding their spirituality within nature or showing the sublime of the nature, whereas Sternfeld's photographs are showing the aftermath of the human inhabitation. He is not showing the sublime and mystical landscape with Matanuska Glacier like his predecessors; he is mocking the view of how it is now with its side line sign and phone wires; the sublime has shifted into something banal yet humorous. Now anyone can go and buy land from the landscape that used to be a spiritual space for the photographers who had the opportunity to see the unknown, it's inhabited and has a landline phone possibility.
In Glen Canyon Dam one can see a similar scene as in Matanuska Glacier but in a different location and with people in the photograph, looking at "their" creation within the sublime nature, the dam. The irony as well as the melancholic aspect of this photograph is on the gaze of the people in the photograph - they are looking at the very unnatural creation, a dam, that is stopping the natural flow of the water between the rocks, the scene that Sternfeld's predecessors were photographing in its natural habitation. This particular dam was built to provide hydroelectricity and flow regulation, and in year 1983 when Sternfeld took his photograph of the dam, the dam was about to flood. The dam is also connected to the artificial lake, which says a lot about the American landscape of today; how it is constructed and how the wilderness and real nature has evolved into a manmade construction of "nature". To get back to the photograph to question more about the manmade and habitation and the future of landscape, we have to look at the baby in the cradle in the center of the photograph. He/she is trapped in the cradle without any adult attention in the middle of a street next to a dam and he/she is looking at the camera, because he/she doesn't know what he/she is looking at. The baby looks so unreal to this landscape that the dam starts to look almost natural compared to the baby. With the juxtapozition of manmade landscape versus nature's resources versus manmade offspring Sternfeld constructs the photograph as a strange environment, almost as a still from an utopic film.
...
References:
My notes from Steffi Klenz's lectures
Stranger Passing, Sternfeld Joel, Bulfinch Press 2001
http://www.luhringaugustine.com/artists/joel-sternfeld#
http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artMakerDetails?maker=3902
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Sternfeld
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glen_Canyon_Dam
In Wet n' Wild Aquatic Theme Park the viewer can see an aquatic theme park that consists of swimming pool, a water slide, sunbathing areas and chairs with people everywhere enjoying their day. The theme park is surrounded by trees and a sky filled with clouds; the landscape before the inhabitation of humans in that area.
In Glen Canyon Dam the viewer can see a cemented area, a dam, a road with a baby in a cradle and tourists looking down at the dam. Behind the dam is again the landscape before human inhabitation; vast amounts of sand and a sky filled with clouds.
In Matanuska Glacier the viewer can see a road that is going down to the glacier and a set of mountains behind the glacier, and on top the mountains a sky filled with clouds; against the sky is telephone wires. Beside the road one can see a side line sign "Majestic View Estates" and their contact number.
In all of the photographs the visual approach stands the same; shot with a 8"x10" large format camera they show a large scale of the landscape, everything in the photographs is on focus and neutral coloured. Because the photographs are coloured with such a deadpan colour palette, they are making the viewer to think more critically and question, is something wrong with this view, and if so, what is it. When looking more closely to the photographs the view shiftens from a typical landscape photograph into a comment about the state of landscape in today's America (in this case, in 70s and 80s America) in relation what is was 100 to 150 years ago; unveiled and -populated space by humans.
In photographs Glen Canyon Dam and Wet n' Wild Aquatic Theme Park the nature landscape looks like it's only the backdrop of the photograph; almost as in the renaissance paintings. Obviously this is not the case; in the contrary the seemingly "backdrop" gives these photographs' their backstory, what the landscape was before and what it is now because of the human inhabitation - used for the purposes of human needs and leisure. When looking at Wet n' Wild Aquatic Theme Park one cannot but wonder, why do we need a water theme park in Florida, where there are lakes everywhere? In my opinion this is what Sternfeld wants the viewer take in consideration when looking at the seemingly innocent photograph of human leisure, to question our approach to nature within today's society and to remind us with the past's landscape.
Both photographs Glen Canyon Dam and Matanuska Glacier are taken in such a places where commissioned photographers (Ansel Adams, Carleton Watkins, Andrew J. Russell, William Henry Jackson, etc.) before him took photographs of landscape before human inhabitation in those areas in America. Their photographs were either about conquering the wild landscape for human inhabitation or finding their spirituality within nature or showing the sublime of the nature, whereas Sternfeld's photographs are showing the aftermath of the human inhabitation. He is not showing the sublime and mystical landscape with Matanuska Glacier like his predecessors; he is mocking the view of how it is now with its side line sign and phone wires; the sublime has shifted into something banal yet humorous. Now anyone can go and buy land from the landscape that used to be a spiritual space for the photographers who had the opportunity to see the unknown, it's inhabited and has a landline phone possibility.
In Glen Canyon Dam one can see a similar scene as in Matanuska Glacier but in a different location and with people in the photograph, looking at "their" creation within the sublime nature, the dam. The irony as well as the melancholic aspect of this photograph is on the gaze of the people in the photograph - they are looking at the very unnatural creation, a dam, that is stopping the natural flow of the water between the rocks, the scene that Sternfeld's predecessors were photographing in its natural habitation. This particular dam was built to provide hydroelectricity and flow regulation, and in year 1983 when Sternfeld took his photograph of the dam, the dam was about to flood. The dam is also connected to the artificial lake, which says a lot about the American landscape of today; how it is constructed and how the wilderness and real nature has evolved into a manmade construction of "nature". To get back to the photograph to question more about the manmade and habitation and the future of landscape, we have to look at the baby in the cradle in the center of the photograph. He/she is trapped in the cradle without any adult attention in the middle of a street next to a dam and he/she is looking at the camera, because he/she doesn't know what he/she is looking at. The baby looks so unreal to this landscape that the dam starts to look almost natural compared to the baby. With the juxtapozition of manmade landscape versus nature's resources versus manmade offspring Sternfeld constructs the photograph as a strange environment, almost as a still from an utopic film.
...
References:
My notes from Steffi Klenz's lectures
Stranger Passing, Sternfeld Joel, Bulfinch Press 2001
http://www.luhringaugustine.com/artists/joel-sternfeld#
http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artMakerDetails?maker=3902
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Sternfeld
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glen_Canyon_Dam
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