David Maisel is an American photographer who is interested
in the conflicting relationship between mankind and nature. With his work he
wants to inform the viewer of the consequences of the extraction of natural
resources on the landscape. His goal is to change our relationship to the
landscape and our understanding of its history. The projects that are described
below will further explain his philosophy.
Mount Saint Helens
When David Maisel was still in his architecture studies, one
of his photography teachers named Emmet Gowin asked him if he wanted to go with
him to photograph Mount Saint Helens. The volcano erupted in 1980 and
devastated the landscape surrounding the volcano. The mountain was photographed from the air,
so most photographs are aerial photographs. Beside the fact that the landscape
was destructed by the volcano, Maisel noticed that the tree logging industry
also had a very negative effect on the landscape. Showing the destruction of
landscapes as a result of the industries became one of the key aspects in his
work.
The Forest
The tree logging industry has had a destructive effect on
the landscape in the Northern part of Maine. A whole tree harvester was used in
this forest to harvest the trees. After the machine felled all trees the site
was abandoned. The landscape that remained reminded Maisel of the photographs
taken by Matthew Brady of the aftermath of the civil war. The chaos and destruction
was similar. To make these images more abstract and to lose the sense of scale
the color of the water was darkened. The scale in these images is almost
unrecognizable.
The Mining Project
In the Mining project Maisel wants to show the consequences
of the extraction of natural resources in the Berkeley Mine in Butte, Montana. These
images reflect on the relationship between consumers, industry and the natural resources.
The consumers rely on these natural resources on a daily basis. Even
photography itself relies on the brutal extraction of these materials from the
landscape.
The Lake Project
“A strange beauty that is born of environmental degradation”
(Maisel)
Starting in 1913 the water from Owens Lake near the eastern
side of the Sierra Mountains in California was diverted into Owens valley Aqueduct
to Los Angeles. The lake was depleted in 1926 exposing vast mineral flats. The
only life forms that will survive in the water that remained are bacteria. The
bacteria turn the water into a blood red color. The vast mineral field that
remains pollutes the air with toxic dust.
Terminal Mirage
Robert Smithson: “The sense of the Earth as a map undergoing
disruption leads the artist to realize that nothing is certain or formal” Maisel was inspired by the writings of Robert Smithson on
the Great Salt Lake. The object of photography is Utah’s Great Salt Lake.
“Terminal Mirage examines the periphery of Utah’s Great Salt
Lake, including zones of mineral evaporation ponds and macabre industrial
pollution covering some 40,000 acres along the shores of the lake. At the
Tooele Army Weapons Depot, 900 munitions storage igloos sprawl across the
valley floor. With each layer of human intervention, the landscape becomes more
complex. Previous scars are covered over, and cycles of negation and erasure
expand into a grid system overlaid on the barren lake. From the air, a new map
emerges.” (Maisel)
Oblivion
Project Oblivion shows the cyborg nature of the city. The
development of the city is self-generating, self-replicating and exists outside
of nature. The photographs were taken in Los Angeles and show the endless
suburbs. Maisel was inspired by the writings of Antony Vidler. In his book
Warped Space he is talking about the “panoramic space of modernism”. In his
photographs the endless suburbs cover or replace the landscape completely.
The tonality of the images was inversed in order to abstract
the photographs. This way of editing refers to the way x-ray images work. X-ray
images show the order, the structure and organization of the object of
observation.
Conclusions
The work of David Maisel shows the conflicting relationship
between mankind and nature. The consequences of the extraction of natural resources
are visible in most of his work. In his photographs he is looking for what he
refers to as: ”the apocalyptic divine” (Maisel), the beauty in absolutely
destructed landscapes. The paradoxal relationship between destruction and
beauty has fascinated Maisel for the last three decades. As he refers to it
himself: “A strange beauty that is born of environmental degradation”(Maisel). The goal of his work is to
alter the relationship to the landscape and our understanding of its history.
Arwin Hidding
References
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