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David Maisel / Black Maps: American Landscape and the Apocalyptic Sublime

February 9–May 11, 2013

surveys four chapters of David’s larger ongoing photographic series titled Black Maps. Composed of large-scale photographs, this exhibition leads the viewer on a hallucinatory journey through landscapes in the American West that have been transformed through the physical and environmental effects of industrial-scale water diversion projects, open-pit mineral extraction and urban sprawl. David’s powerful aerial photographs exist as aesthetic and political archives documenting the impact of both human consumption and inhabitation. More than mere records, these photographs evoke sublime beauty and apocalyptic destruction, positioning David at the forefront of a complex new approach to framing and interpreting issues of contemporary landscape and culture.

Curated by Lisa Tamiris Becker, director of the CU Art Museum, and Helmut Müller-Sievers, director of the Center for the Humanities and the Arts and Eaton Professor of Humanities .

This exhibition was generously supported in part by the HBB Foundation, CU Art Museum benefactors and members, CU-Boulder Student Arts and Cultural Enrichment fees, and the Center of the American West. Additional support for the related artist/curatorial lecture and discussion was generously provided by CU-Boulder’s Center for Humanities and the Arts and the Roser Visiting Artist Grant.