The Altered Landscape

A major survey of photographs from the Museum’s Carol Franc Buck Altered Landscape Photography Collection, the Museum’s largest focus collection which features more than 1,000 contemporary landscape photographs. 

Since its establishment in the early 1990s, the collection has included images that address and engage issues related to land use and the changing landscape. While the collection represents a diversity of artists, techniques, visual styles, subjects, and ideological positions, it is unified by two basic principles: a) a concern for inspiring dialogue about the impact of human activity on natural and built environments; and b) an effort to depart from idealized notions of scenic beauty and pristine wilderness that were dominant in the early 20th century.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website

Whether or not you go, The Altered Landscape: Photographs of a Changing Environment provides a comprehensive look at the Carol Franc Buck Altered Landscape Photography Collection, presenting work of 100 contemporary photographers who capture the impact of human activity on natural landscapes. It is a provocative collection of photographs representing a wide range of artists, techniques, visual styles, subjects, and ideological positions. 

Organized chronologically, the more than 150 images-by artists such as Andy Goldsworthy, Chris Jordan, Catherine Opie, and Edward Burtynsky-reveal the ways that individuals and industries have marked, mined, toured, tested, developed, occupied, and exploited landscapes over the last fifty years. From Robert Adams and Lewis Baltz, two of the most influential photographers to document environmental destruction in the American West, to Richard Misrach and Mark Klett, who examine abuse of natural resources, these moving images reveal the diversity of voices within the field of contemporary photography. 

The Altered Landscape: Photographs of a Changing Environment