American Geography

By Suzanne Révy

The earth speaks. Record setting temperatures, wildfires, frequent hurricanes and rising sea levels seem to cry out, “save me!” And honestly, is not a world-wide pandemic another symptom of climate change? The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report offers a grim view of the future, but it also reveals that we have a narrow window in which to implement changes in how we employ natural resources in order to mitigate the threat to human life. At the same moment, Sandra S. Philips, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA) Curator Emerita of Photography, along with Sally Martin Katz, Curatorial Assistant of Photography, have considered the American landscape through the eyes of contemporary photographers for a planned exhibition entitled American Geography: Photographs of Land Use from 1840 to the Present at SFMoMA which was cancelled due to Covid-19.  Fortunately, the accompanying catalog, American Geography, was recently published by Radius Books (2021), and invites readers to consider compelling narratives of our cultural history through regional topography and looking at how natural resources or land have been carved up and exploited in building and sustaining this nation. 

“Bellwood Station, Pennsylvania Railroad” ca. 1885 by William Henry Rau platinum print, collection of the Sack Photographic Trust, SFMOMA from the book American Geography.

The book opens with a powerful essay by the late Barry Lopez and is organized into five sections, presented in a cardboard slipcase with a “Chickey” binding that allows this large tome to lie flat. An early series of pictures offer a short history of American expansion and the landscape photographs which recorded it, while the following four sections mix contemporary and twentieth century pictures regionally: Northeast, Midwest & the Plains, South, and West. Supporting essays by Beverly Dahlen, Hilary N. Green, Layli Long Soldier, Jenny Reardon, Richard White and Richard B. Woodward offer historic, cultural and personal contexts for each region which raise profound questions around contradictory and shifting attitudes toward the seemingly abundant resources and the sublime beauty found here by the early colonial settlers. 

“From my window at the Shelton West” 1931 by Alfred Stieglitz, SFMoma Alfred Steiglitz Collection, gift of Georgia O’Keefe (1952) from the book American Geography.

“From Country Elevator, Red River Valley” 1957 by John Szarkowski, estate of John Szarkowski from the book American Geography.

“Fifth Street Tavern and UPMC Braddock Hospital on Braddock Ave” 2011 by LaToya Ruby Frazier, courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels, from the book American Geography.

“Untitled” 2009 by Gregory Halpern from the series A [Detroit, Michigan], courtesy of the artist from the book American Geography.

“Fishkill, NY State Prison” 1997 by Stephen Tourlentes from the series Of Length and Measure, courtesy of the artist from the book American Geography.

“Chicago Landscape #117” 1964 by Art Sinsabaugh, collection of the Sack Photographic Trust of SFMoma from the book American Geography.

“Mt. Zion AME Church Cemetery” 2002 by Wendel White, courtesy of the artist from the book American Geography.

“Cemetery, Fountain City, WI” 2002 by Alec Soth, courtesy of the artist, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Sean Kelly, New York from the book American Geography.

The Northeast and Plains are illustrated with a variety of industrial scenes from New England to Michigan, alongside vast horizons of farmland and grain elevators. Traces of economic booms and the inevitable busts seem to whisper through photographs by Alfred Stieglitz, John Szarkowski and Stephen Shore. Haunting these landscapes are the people who toiled in service to industry as shown in the demolition of a LaToya Ruby Frazier photograph or the eerie light in Gregory Halpern’s image from Detroit. Imprisonment is present in Stephen Tourlentes view of Fishkill State Prison and confinement oppresses in the tight structure of a series of highway ramps in Art Sinsabaugh’s view of Chicago.  Death appears in Wendel White’s panoramic of a barren cemetery from the Mt. Zion AME Church in Swedesboro, NJ and in Alec Soth’s poignant night-time portrait of a graveyard camouflaged behind the neon lights of a gas station. And despite the pessimistic tone, there is something guardedly reassuring in Barbara Bosworth’s harvested carrots or Gregory Coniff’s “Loveladies” which reveal nature’s redemptive abilities. 

“Carrot Harves” 2009 by Barbara Bosworth from the series The Meadow, courtesy of the artist from the book American Geography.

“Loveladies, New Jersey” 1979 by Gregory Conniff, courtesy of the artist from the book American Geography.

“Monument, General P.G.T. Beauregard, New Orleans, Louisiana” 2016 by An-My Lê from the series The Silent General, courtesy of the artist and Pier 24 Photography, San Francisco from the book American Geography.

“Amos Coal Power Plant, Raymond City, W. Virginia” 2004 by Mitch Epstein from the series American Power, SFMoma Accessions Committee Fund Purchase, 1996 from the book American Geography.

“Enterprise Sugar Mill” 1985 by Debbie Fleming Caffery, SFMoma, gift of Paul and Kelly Fleming, 2002 from the book American Geography.

Pictures from the South open with a telling nod to the history of the Civil War and its aftermath which resonates today. An-My Lê’s striking picture of the General Beauregard monument concealed behind a large canvas tarp casting a shadowy silhouette asks us how historic narratives might be changed if stories are told from a different vantage point. Lush, overgrown southern landscapes steeped in destructive industries such as power plants, mining or factory food production, as in Debbie Fleming Caffery’s smoke-filled skies, draw attention to the heaviness of air pollution. The vast open land and skies of the West are sublimely beautiful and often camouflage similar industrial activities found in the South. Upon careful inspection, Victoria Sambunaris’ quietly graphic polyptych of wetlands and sky reveal an almost endless train on the horizon moving goods across Texas. Or Terry Evans transcendent North Dakota scene of stormy clouds looming above a red dirt road and a sweeping landscape that is faintly marred by the infrastructure of fracking. Despite the despair that weaves through the selections, there is a beauty to this destruction, which serves as a metaphor for the disruptions we have inflicted on the life-sustaining resources of our planet. 

“Untitled (Trains Crossing Estuarial Corridor I-5), Virginia Point, Texas” 2015 by Victoria Sambunaris, SFMoma Accessions Committee Fund purchase, 2018 from the book American Geography.

“Preparation for Fracking , south of Stanley, North Dakota, May 24th, 2012” by Terry Evans, courtesy of the artist from the book American Geography.

“Sacred Stone Camp, Standing Rock, Sioux Reservation, North Dakota” 2017 by Mitch Epstein, courtesy of the artist and Sikkema Jenkins, New York from the book American Geography.

“Untitled #3 (Coates-Bates House) 2017 by Dawoud Bey from the series Night Coming Tenderly, Black, SFMoma Accesssion Committee Fund purchase 2019 from the book American Geography.

Despite an almost total absence of the human form in the book’s selections, curators Philips and Katz weave a story of human endeavor and turmoil. Displacement of native cultures is addressed in Mitch Epstein’s Sacred Camp in the Standing Rock Sioux reservation. The tragic separations of enslaved peoples in images of the underground railroad by Dawoud Bey, Amani Willett and Dannielle Bowman further testify to the existential threat to human life on earth. Photography offers no prognoses for the future, and American Geography is a bittersweet pill. The moving images and illuminating essays presented here offer tangible meditations on our blunders and illustrations of all we stand to lose. 

“Hiding Place, Cambridge, MA” 2010 by Amani Willett from the series The Underground Railroad, courtesy of the artist from the book American Geography.

“Weeping Time Landscape, Savannah Georgia” 2019 by Dannielle Bowman, courtesy of the artist from the book American Geography.

American Geography by Sandra S. Philips with Sally Martin Katz, essays by Beverly Dahlen, Hilary N. Green, Layli Long Soldier, Barry Lopez, Jenny Reardon, Richard White and Richard B. Woodward, published by Radius, 2021 Santa Fe, New Mexico. Cover photograph, “Holden Street, North Adams, Massachusetts, July 13th 1974” by Stephen Shore, courtesy of a private collection.

For more information: https://www.radiusbooks.org/all-books/p/american-geography