Out of Site - at the Autry

Another Pacific Standard Time, Art and Science Collide show, this time at the Autry (so wonderfully close by): Out of Site: Survey Science and the Hidden West.  This - like the Huntington Exhibition, is beautifully curated, and a wonderful mix of nineteenth century materials (some familiar, some not at all so), twentieth century, and contemporary work - much of which blurred the line between survey and surveillance.  I really appreciated the juxtapositions - not just the Mark Klett etc rephotography, but - above - the Timothy O'Sullivan water holes and ponds with the Remington Fight for the Water Hole painting - I'd never previously seen it close up, and appreciated how much action is taking place in the background.

The early rooms were dark - but not just for conservation reasons: mining was so central here to the theme of subterranean observation that one felt as though one was, indeed, down a pit.  And I was so grateful for all the attention given to Flash -

including Harold Edgerton's Mirror Sphere (this felt like an old friend!).

Organized by the VSRI/LACMA photo research group, this was an excellent Saturday morning with colleagues and students, and Britt Salvesen and Amy Scott - from LACMA and the Autry respecively - were understandably the best of guides - from gold mines through to nuclear explosions and some great contemporary photography by John Divola (of an abandoned army base near Victorville) and Bremner Benedict - beautiful images of sites near the southern border that are, in fact, subject to all kinds of environmental degradation.  And as Amy and Britt brought out, so many of the images belonged in sets, or series, and so the whole show was very much about the temporal, as well.