Mark Klett

Casa Grande ruins with protective rain shelter, 12/16/84

1984

Photographer Mark Klett is best known for cool, impersonal images of desert landscapes in the American Southwest, taken from a similar vantage points and under similar lighting conditions as 19th-century photographs by the likes of seminal surveyors William Henry Jackson and Timothy O’Sullivan. These photos consider changes in landscape, history, culture, aesthetics, technology, representation, and perception. Klett has collaborated with several artists, including Byron Wolfe...

Photographer Mark Klett is best known for cool, impersonal images of desert landscapes in the American Southwest, taken from a similar vantage points and under similar lighting condi...

Photographer Mark Klett is best known for cool, impersonal images of desert landscapes in the American Southwest, taken from a similar vantage points and under similar lighting conditions as 19th-century photographs by the likes of seminal surveyors William Henry Jackson and Timothy O’Sullivan. These photos consider changes in landscape, history, culture, aesthetics, technology, representation, and perception. Klett has collaborated with several artists, including Byron Wolfe...

Photographer Mark Klett is best known for cool, impersonal images of desert landscapes in the American Southwest, taken from a similar vantage points and under similar lighting condi...

Photographer Mark Klett is best known for cool, impersonal images of desert landscapes in the American Southwest, taken from a similar vantage points and under similar lighting condi...

Photographer Mark Klett is best known for cool, impersonal images of desert landscapes in the American Southwest, taken from a similar vantage points and under similar lighting condi...

The iconic buildings of modern architecture are wonderful. No doubt. Every single line is designed to create a result of power, glory, and undisputed beauty. Are you sure? … By quest...

The “Still Live” photographs” are a manifesto of slowness, of the pleasure of observation, of recovery of reflection. Giangiacomo Rocco di Torrepadula takes an everyday object from his household, one that appears to no longer be useful because it is old, broken or only kept for its sentimental value. He places it in a space and makes use of his monorail camera. Before taking the shot, he studies the object calmly, engaging in an intimate dialogue with it until he finds a view that gives it a new life. It is hard to get it right the first time. All the various attempts are measured, calculated, slow. Speed does not belong to the monorail camera. Each attempt is well thought out, then developed in a darkroom and scanned using a special technique to bring out the image. It can take several days to get the right result. But these are days that have the pleasure of slowly rediscovering a past that you somehow manage to reclaim. Here, we are a long way away from the execution speed typical of digital and even further away from the frenetic exploitation of images on social media. The result is an image that erupts with its wealth of detail, which is especially explosive when printed in large format. The object becomes seductive, often turning into something else entirely, that may not be immediately perceptible. The perspective, the details, the light, all stimulate the observer to actively participate in this new vision. Far from being a nostalgic interpretation, the work leads the viewer to investigate the form, to pause, to observe the details, to get lost in the haziness, and in so doing, to regain possession of their time in a gesture of profound observation. In this hectic, busy, fast-paced world, nothing ever stops making sense...

The iconic buildings of modern architecture are wonderful. No doubt. Every single line is designed to create a result of power, glory, and undisputed beauty. Are you sure? … By quest...

The “Still Live” photographs” are a manifesto of slowness, of the pleasure of observation, of recovery of reflection. Giangiacomo Rocco di Torrepadula takes an everyday object from his household, one that appears to no longer be useful because it is old, broken or only kept for its sentimental value. He places it in a space and makes use of his monorail camera. Before taking the shot, he studies the object calmly, engaging in an intimate dialogue with it until he finds a view that gives it a new life. It is hard to get it right the first time. All the various attempts are measured, calculated, slow. Speed does not belong to the monorail camera. Each attempt is well thought out, then developed in a darkroom and scanned using a special technique to bring out the image. It can take several days to get the right result. But these are days that have the pleasure of slowly rediscovering a past that you somehow manage to reclaim. Here, we are a long way away from the execution speed typical of digital and even further away from the frenetic exploitation of images on social media. The result is an image that erupts with its wealth of detail, which is especially explosive when printed in large format. The object becomes seductive, often turning into something else entirely, that may not be immediately perceptible. The perspective, the details, the light, all stimulate the observer to actively participate in this new vision. Far from being a nostalgic interpretation, the work leads the viewer to investigate the form, to pause, to observe the details, to get lost in the haziness, and in so doing, to regain possession of their time in a gesture of profound observation. In this hectic, busy, fast-paced world, nothing ever stops making sense...

The “Still Live” photographs” are a manifesto of slowness, of the pleasure of observation, of recovery of reflection. Giangiacomo Rocco di Torrepadula takes an everyday object from his household, one that appears to no longer be useful because it is old, broken or only kept for its sentimental value. He places it in a space and makes use of his monorail camera. Before taking the shot, he studies the object calmly, engaging in an intimate dialogue with it until he finds a view that gives it a new life. It is hard to get it right the first time. All the various attempts are measured, calculated, slow. Speed does not belong to the monorail camera. Each attempt is well thought out, then developed in a darkroom and scanned using a special technique to bring out the image. It can take several days to get the right result. But these are days that have the pleasure of slowly rediscovering a past that you somehow manage to reclaim. Here, we are a long way away from the execution speed typical of digital and even further away from the frenetic exploitation of images on social media. The result is an image that erupts with its wealth of detail, which is especially explosive when printed in large format. The object becomes seductive, often turning into something else entirely, that may not be immediately perceptible. The perspective, the details, the light, all stimulate the observer to actively participate in this new vision. Far from being a nostalgic interpretation, the work leads the viewer to investigate the form, to pause, to observe the details, to get lost in the haziness, and in so doing, to regain possession of their time in a gesture of profound observation. In this hectic, busy, fast-paced world, nothing ever stops making sense...

The iconic buildings of modern architecture are wonderful. No doubt. Every single line is designed to create a result of power, glory, and undisputed beauty. Are you sure? … By quest...