THIS IS THE PLACE
THIS IS THE PLACE is a photographic exploration of minimalist art as found in the land- scape of our farmland. Driving highway twenty through central Idaho, the ground stretches for miles, expanding space. The linear landscape feels curated. In the winter months, the muted horizon parades elemental forms; barns and grain elevators, cow houses, cow- sheds, granges as they have been called. My mind, in its road trip haze, translates the landscape into fields of Donald Judd’s concrete blocks. As a photographer, I flatten the plane, calling to mind Judd’s woodblock prints. The structures fade into a cluster of hol- lowed rectangles. A perfectly centered horizon line juts from a singular form.
THIS IS THE PLACE is a structural exploration of our vanishing farmland. As I peer through my viewfinder, I am not only deeply engaged with form and texture, line, color and atmosphere, I am also contemplating the rate at which our farmland in disappearing. It is urgent for me to capture a place that historically has served as a source of health and ecosystem before it is gone.
THIS IS THE PLACE I am telling you about.
THIS IS THE PLACE is an ongoing series of fine art, large scale, color photographs. Each image was taken with a medium format camera and is sized approximately 36×40 and 54×60 inches.
Wendel Wirth
