Manifest Destiny

By Suzanne Révy

“Manifest Destiny” is the first of four exhibitions the Griffin Museum of Photography is organizing under the moniker State of the Union to commemorate the 250th year of the United States. And it is a magnificent start, featuring an intoxicating array of bold, immersive prints that engage with ideas around the myth of America through a contemporary sensibility. The featured photographers are Victoria Sambunaris, Scott Conarroe, Lisa Elmaleh, Drew Leventhal, Richard Frishman and Craig Easton. Also on view, Austin Bryant’s “Where They Still Remain” in the Griffin Atelier Gallery and two series by John Willis in the Griffin Gallery. An artist panel is planned for Saturday, January 24th from 3 to 4:30pm followed by a reception from 5 to 7pm and all exhibitions will be on view through March 15th, 2026. 

Feature Image: “Untitled (Hercules Gap, Ely, Nevada)” by Victoria Sambunaris, from the series Taxonomy of a Landscape, courtesy of the artist, Yancey Richardson Gallery, NYC, and the Griffin Museum of Photography.

19^th-century advocates for the idea of “Manifest Destiny” believed that European settlers of the United States were ordained by God to expand west to the pacific coast. Early landscape photography was made in service to the railroad barons who wished to entice people westward. They saw vast resources to be exploited, and a native population that had to be pushed out of the way. It was perhaps inevitable that a diverse population would arrive in the American west, but from a 21^st-century standpoint, this was driven far more by economics than some divine power.

“Untitled (Gold Mine, Fairbanks, Alaska)” by Victoria Sambunaris, from the series Taxonomy of a Landscape, courtesy of the artist, Yancey Richardson Gallery, NYC and the Griffin Museum of Photography.

“Untitled (Berkeley Pit Lake)” by Victoria Sambunaris, from the series Taxonomy of a Landscape, courtesy of the artist, Yancey Richardson Gallery, NYC and the Griffin Museum of Photography

Capitalism continues to be a driving force in exploiting resources for profit, and Victoria Sambunaris turns her attention to industrial sites of the west in her majestic, large-format color pictures. Taxonomy of a Landscape offers a subtle nod to Timothy H. O’Sullivan’s survey pictures from the 1860’s that helped define where rail or roads should be built, as shown in her picture of a railroad snaking between the Hercules Gap in Ely, Nevada. The monumental scale of a gold mine in Alaska or the Berkeley Pit Lake in Butte, Montana are gaping wounds in the earth’s crust, emphasizing how human disruptions have altered and scarred the land in pursuit of commercial gains. 

“Monorail Station, Miami Florida” by Scott Conarroe, 2008, from the series By Rail, courtesy of the artist, Stephen Bulger Gallery, Toronto and the Griffin Museum of Photography.

“Pedestrian Bridge, Santa Monica, California” by Scott Conarroe, 2010, from the series By Rail, courtesy of the artist, Stephen Bulger Gallery and the Griffin Museum of Photography.

“Hobo Camp, Reno, Nevada” by Scott Conarroe, 2008, from the series By Rail, courtesy of the artist, Stephen Bulger Gallery and the Griffin Museum of Photography.

Scott Conarroe’s striking color landscapes in By Rail and By Sea focus on urban transportation systems. His images of built landscapes defy human scale in ways I doubt that 19^th-century advocates for expansion could have imagined. His images of car-centric urban environments such as Miami and San Francisco emphasize a lack of social engagement, though to be fair, his picture of the pedestrian bridge over the Pacific Coast Highway in Santa Monica, California is an inviting view of the beaches at the edge of the country. His poignant “Hobo Camp” points to persistent economic divisions symbolized by a railroad track separating the itinerant camp from a neighborhood in Reno, Nevada.

“Casa de la Misericordia” by Lisa Elmaleh, from the series Promised Land/Tierra Prometida, courtesy of the artist and the Griffin Museum of Photography.

“13 Crosses, for Dora Rodriguez” by Lisa Elmaleh, from the series Promised Land/Tierra Prometida, courtesy of the artist and the Griffin Museum of Photography.

“Moonrise over Juarez” by Lisa Elmaleh, from the series Promised Land/Tierra Prometida, courtesy of the artist and the Griffin Museum of Photography.

Similarly, the United States and Mexico border divides communities.  Lisa Elmalah’s series Promised Land/Tierra Prometida includes landscapes of the borderland and portraits of those in search of safety and security in the U.S.. Elmaleh has worked with aid groups who assist asylum seekers and people migrating with provisions and shelter. Their work includes placing markers at sites where people died in the harsh desert, which she documents in a heart-breaking back lit picture of crosses among the desert flora. Her use of an 8”x10” camera endows a group of people with startling dignity, bathed in late day sun at the Casa de la Misericordia, which offers temporary housing for vulnerable families, women, children and members of the LGBTQ+ community. Elmaleh’s thoughtful pictures raise deliberate questions about division and unity and question human empathy across barriers. 

From the series Mason & Dixon by Drew Leventhal, courtesy of the artist and the Griffin Museum of Photography.

From the series Mason & Dixon by Drew Leventhal, courtesy of the artist and the Griffin Museum of Photography.

From the series Mason & Dixon by Drew Leventhal, courtesy of the artist and the Griffin Museum of Photography.

Drew Leventhal explores the historic geographic line between north and south in his series Mason & Dixon. His lush black and white photogravures are dripping in atmosphere and mood. Scars through forests or ponds are palpably present. As a landscape photographer, I am often struck by an awareness of history and a gut feeling for the presence of those people who walked the same trails before me wherever I might be photographing. Leventhal’s tactile pictures hint at a similar sense by evoking an ethos of Civil War era photography and Underground Railroad histories through an emotionally charged chiaroscuro. His prints are simply sublime. 

“Slave Exchange, New Orleans” by Richard Frishman, from the series Ghosts of Segregation, courtesy of the artist and the Griffin Museum of Photography.

“Murder of Matthew Shepherd Site” by Richard Frishman from the series Ghosts of Segregation, courtesy of the artist and the Griffin Museum of Photography.

“Edmund Pettus Bridge” by Richard Frishman, from the series Ghosts of Segregation, courtesy of the artist and the Griffin Museum of Photography.

Where Leventhal is tangibly emotional, Richard Frishman exposes the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow laws through rich color, light and texture. His documentary series Ghosts of Segregation reveal the fragments and relics of institutional racism that helped build the United States. Frishman’s work becomes a metaphor for the way history often glosses over the uglier legacies of our past. For example, a photograph made at the former New Orleans slave exchange shows that only the word “change” remains above two arched doors. A shadow of a sculpture seems to ask, are we saints or sinners? He expands to include LGBTQ+ rights in his extraordinary photograph of a fence post under a setting sun in Laramie, Wyoming where Matthew Shepherd was killed in 1998. His photograph of the Edmund Pettus Bridge is bathed in hues of deep midnight blues. The allure of Frishman’s pictures belies the bloody history of these sites. 

“Roundup, MT” by Craig Easton, from the series Notes on the American Road Trip, courtesy of the artist and the Griffin Museum of Photography.

“Cathedral Rock, Yosemite, CA” by Craig Easton, from the series Notes on the American Road Trip, courtesy of the artist and the Griffin Museum of Photography.

“Grand Canyon, AZ” by Craig Easton, from the series Notes on the American Road Trip, courtesy of the artist and the Griffin Museum of Photography.

We are, however, blessed with a country of extraordinary beauty and varied terrain that invites exploration. Craig Easton’s Notes on the American Road Trip strikes a positive, if occasionally questioning, note as he meanders through the vernacular and the refined. His picture of an unused billboard tacked with a small American flag and a “for sale” sign is both droll and searching. By contrast, his  bathers in Yosemite offer a peaceful moment of repose amidst nature, and his picture of tourists at the Grand Canyon humorously observes tourists observing themselves. Manifest Destiny cunningly demonstrates how our interventions on the American landscape have cut both ways, offering prosperity for some while burdening others in hardship. 

Look for our review of Austin Bryant’s Where They Still Remain and John Willis next week!

For more information: https://griffinmuseum.org

“Pasamanos” by Lisa Elmaleh, from the series Promised Land/Tierra Prometida, courtesy of the artist and the Griffin Museum of Photography.