Azimuth
Terrain and Direction: Deciphering the West
March 2 – April 3, 2016
This theme is ideally suited for an 8×10 view camera, which offers extreme detail and the possibility of a precise plane of focus from the ground in front of the tripod to the horizon (via the scheimpflug principle).
The Old West of explorer, pioneer, cowboy, Indian, rancher, miner and the transcontinental railway is deeply ingrained in our cultural psyche. The New West is shaped by many factors, including commercial and industrial interests, the Federal government and the military, hunters, outdoor sports enthusiasts, dude ranchers, snowbirds, routine tourists, off-road gear-heads, and of course, the exoskeletons of new highways, development and creeping suburbia.
Azimuth deals with reading traces in the landscape where history and lore linger still, before being overwritten by modernity. Azimuth seeks to find what directions we’re moving in as we reevaluate and reshape the Western landscape. What are the implications of our development decisions? What kinds of custodians are we? What is the worth of land left alone? How do land-use decisions affect us socially? Is beauty in landscape, void of cliché, still possible?
Like a tracker I read places, patterns and markings in/on/of the landscape. Sometimes they’re big things, like open pit mines; sometimes they’re subtle, places where historical “incident and accident” remain as trace, marker or relic. In all images I value understatement and a pulled-back, panoramic vantage point, allowing viewers to discover their own answers to these questions.
William Binzen attended Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, NY, noted for its experimental approach to photography, just a few years after its founding by educator and curator, Nathan Lyons. In 1978 he received a MFA in Photography from the San Francisco Art Institute. From 1992-1994 he convened, directed and photographed Desert Siteworks (DSW), a site-specific, collaborative art-making project involving about 100 participants that took place at a different hot spring each year. The Burning Man Journal credits Binzen as that festival’s “original visual thought leader” and DSW as “the event from which Burning Man selected it philosophy and culture”, which has subsequently influenced festivals worldwide. Binzen’s work is in the Nevada Museum of Art; additionally, his DSW notebooks and other materials are in the Archive Collection of the museum’s Center for Art + Environment. Images from a variety of other portfolios are in the Polaroid Permanent Print Collection and numerous private collections.
