Nina Dietzel
Dreamland: Landmark / framed photographph
2017

Name: Dreamland: Landmark / framed photographph
Brand: Nina Dietzel
Price: 3600 USD
Availability: InStock

About the Item

"Landmark". From Dietzel's DREAMLAND series. Medium sized Archival Pigment print is Ed. 1/3 - 27 x 39 inches / Frame outer dimension is 28 x 40 x 2 inches. Contemporary white powder coated wood frame and all archival and UV materials used throughout. The work of German photographer Nina Dietzel oscillates between intense, fast-paced photojournalism to intimate, behind-the-scenes portraiture of some of the worlds leading contemporary artists. Some of Dietzel’s diverse projects include photographing Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, collaborating with British sculptor and environmentalist Andy Goldsworthy, documenting the making of the exhibition @Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz, and capturing the complex fabrication process of Mark di Suvero's sculptures at his studio in Sonoma County, California. Working digitally for her professional assignments, Dietzel's artistic practice is one firmly rooted in the analog, reliant on a vintage, medium-format Hasselblad camera and the physical manipulation of the film it produces. For Dietzel, working with the exceptionally designed Hasselblad allows for the deceleration of time, making room for a meditative process by which a deeper relationship between the photographer and her subject can be cultivated. This slow, sustained engagement offers a refreshing counterpoint to the deluge of harried, digital snapshots with which we are inundated daily, a poignant reminder that if we don’t take the time to slow down, we may just miss the magic. Diztzel's Dreamland series captured the abandoned yet still enduring quality of a wild space in transition: the Salton Sea. In her 2007 book Storming the Gates of Paradise: Landscapes for Politics, writer Rebecca Solnit studies how places are shaped by human desire: “And then there are the ruins, the prisons, the radioactive lands, the endless battles between this country’s myriad factions, each of whom is in one way or another storming the gates of paradise, trying to get inside their vision of a better world.” Dreamland considers how the Salton Sea embodies one such vision of paradise, the ecological legacies of human development on the land, and the future of this temporarily human-dominated landscape. The fate of California’s biggest lake is historically and environmentally complex. Though fluctuating water levels have shaped the area for thousands of years, the Salton Sea formed following the rupture of a manmade canal in the early 1900s, flooding an area between Southern California’s Imperial and Coachella Valleys. Located about 160 miles east of Los Angeles, and fed by the Colorado and other rivers, the accidental lake was made into a bustling tourist hub in the 1950s. Agricultural runoff and drought contributed to the Salton Sea’s evaporation, causing salinity to skyrocket, and devastating fish and wildlife populations. Without conservation efforts, a bare, dry lake floor could result in dust storms reaching Palm Springs and beyond, and birds would lose a crucial stop on their migratory path. Assessing the Salton Sea within a geologic and ecologic timescale, then, is a fitting framework for understanding the place and a lens through which to interpret the images in Dreamland. There is a distinct sense that the manmade vestiges of the Salton Sea are being gradually swallowed back into the land: nature is taking over where humans left off. As years pass, the landscape’s visual information—evidence of its glory days—further decomposes and is obscured by harsh conditions. The washed-out hues of palm trees, cracks of baked-earth, coiled lengths of hoses, and a few remaining structures and trailers dot an ambiguous landscape that could be other places in the United States. In this way, Dreamland conveys a tension between anonymity and specificity in a particularly evocative example of modern humanity’s failed efforts to alter the natural landscape. In conversation with other bodies of work depicting the Salton Sea, Dreamland can be seen as a post-industrial record of the American West. American photographer Richard Misrach’s work depicts a mid-eighties Salton Sea, not long after tourists abandoned the resort, when the human-built environment—partially-submerged houses, street signs, trailers and trucks—was still clearly and eerily at odds with nature. Dietzel’s intimate desert still lifes comprehend the aesthetic nuances of the ever-increasing precariousness of the Salton Sea thirty years later, and critically contemplates human-precipitated and naturally occurring imprints on the land, the beauty in transitional spaces, and an awareness of how we connect to a place. Largest print is Ed. 1/3 - 40 x 60 inches / Frame outer dimension 42 x 62 x 2 inches Medium print is Ed. 1/3 - 27 x 39 inches / Frame outer dimsions is 28 x 40 x 2 inches Smallest print is Ed. 1/7 - 19 x 27 inches / Frame outer dimsnsion is 20 x 28 x 2 inches *Prints are also available unframed. Please inquire within.

Creator:

Nina Dietzel (American, German)

Creation Year:

2017

Dimensions:

Height: 28 in (71.12 cm)Width: 40 in (101.6 cm)Depth: 2 in (5.08 cm)

Medium:

Archival Pigment

Movement & Style:

Contemporary

Period:

21st Century