Clifford • Smith Gallery is pleased to announce its October exhibition, new photographs by Josh Winer. There will be a reception for the artist on Friday evening October 8th, from 5:30 - 7:30 pm.

These landscapes are part of a project that investigates the history of traditional Western Landscape Photography and the discursive nature of the land itself. Working within the parameters of large format color photography, Winer begins by looking for spaces that are in a state of transition and being actively transformed either for utilitarian or commercial purposes. Within these spaces, the earth itself becomes a record of our ambitions and the actions that follow. We move mountains, quite literally, to create a more perfect landscape that we imagine will be taken as “natural” by those who come after us. Through these very acts of excavating the earth and creating new landscapes, the earth itself becomes an agent of our ambitions and desires.

The only indication of where these places really exist is in the title of each image, the Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates that Winer records at each site. This titling system allows the viewer a point of entry to the image, confirming the actual place with the Cartesian mapping coordinates that fix any point on the globe, but also serves to call into question our ability to know or return to any place within the world at large. This lack of definition of place exists in direct opposition to the sense of expectation inherent in these images of the constructed landscape-in-progress. That these places are not the ultimate intended experience of the space does not negate our interim effect on the landscape and the understood “perfected” landscape that we expect as a result of our intervention.

Josh Winer holds an MFA from the Massachusetts College of Art. He lives and works in Boston, Massachusetts.

For more information please e-mail the gallery or call 617.695.0255