The landscape of Emmet Gowin's photographs is one of cruel beauty. Gowin, high above his subjects, photographs the gold mines, open coal pits, battlefields and atomic test sites which have scarred the earth's skin. From his God-like perch, these assaults on nature take on a transcendent, abstract quality. Poisoned lakes reflect cloudless skies. Half domes are pressed into the land like dimples. Stripes of blackened earth unfurl across the landscape like streaks of modernist abstraction rendered on a global scale. The richly toned palette of Gowin's black and white photographs lends his images a severe elegance. They seem almost immorally gorgeous -- like a kind of hideous but alluring scarification. That the earth has survived the attacks Gowin's photographs describe -- a description as candid as forensic evidence -- is as much a testament to the planet's strength as to our folly as a species. Emmet Gowin received his M.F.A. from Rhode Island School of Design and his B.A. from Virginia Commonwealth University. His honors include several fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts and a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. To date, three monographs have been published on his work and his photographs are in museum collections internationally, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Tokyo Museum of Art, the George Eastman House in Rochester, Espace Photographic de Paris, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum fo American Art in New York. He has had numerous one-person exhibitions; recently his work was exhibited at New York's Pace/MacGill Gallery.
출처 - http://www.pewarts.org/94/Gowin/
사진은 광산, 노천광, 전쟁터 그리고 지구의 표면을 무섭게 만드는 핵 실험장들을
찍었다. 신과 같은 도도함으로 자연에 대한 공격을 초월적으로, 추상적으로
보여주고 있다. 오염된 호수는 구름한점 없는 하늘을 반영하고 있다. 반쪽짜리
돔은 보조개처럼 땅속으로 누려져 들어가 있다. 풍경화를 통해서 우울한 지구를
벗겨낸것은 모더니스트들이 커다란 규모로 묘사했던 일련의 추상화 같다.
고윈의 흑백의 풍부한 톤으로 인화된 사진들은 아주 우아하게 보인다. 그것들은
부도덕하게 화려한것 같다 - 소름끼치지만 잔혹함을 불러일으키는것처럼.
고윈의 사진으로 묘사한 공격들로부터 살아남은 지구는 인류의 우둔함을 증명
하듯이 지구의 강함을 증명하고 있다.