Steve Davis photographs the marginalized, imprisoned and down on their luck.
The 2007 flood in Washington State drew him outdoors.
Currently at James Harris his series of landscapes titled The Western Lands. The photo above is lit and framed as if a body of brown water bordered by drowned trees were a face.
Familiar but strange, each scene is devoid of humans but imbued with
evidence of their presence.
Richard Misrach comes of mind, naturally. His series, On the Beach, opened at the Art Institute of Chicago in 2007 and has been touring ever since, at the Henry last November till February and currently at the High Museum, where it closes Aug. 16.
Misrach’s career has been distorted by the demand for his work. If 75 percent of it magically disappeared, leaving only his peak moments, he’d be magnificent instead of what he is, overexposed and underfed. On the Beach is a disgrace of an exhibit. It isn’t curated, it’s packaged to please, with 10 photos undoing what a well-chosen one would have accomplished.
Just because repetition works for Bernd and Hilla Becher doesn’t mean it works for everybody.
With The Western Lands, Davis is in Misrach territory without being in Misrach’s kind of trouble. Each photo is a distinct experience, with a formidable calm that opens into further reaches of calm the longer you look at it.
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