Tuesday, April 14, 1998
Photos contrast landscapes, man’s effects on nature
ART: In honor of Earth Day, exhibition focuses on issues in a
new light
By Sam Toussi
Daily Bruin Contributor
In commemoration of Earth Day 1998, the UCLA Environmental
Coalition has brought photographer David Stock’s exhibit,
"Prisoners of Our Own Device," to UCLA. The exhibit will open at
Kerckhoff Art Gallery preceded by a reception to mark the
exhibition on Wednesday.
The exhibit features Stock’s highly crafted, black and white
landscape photography. However, although Stock’s style makes free
use of classic styles, he also subverts and updates those styles in
order to convey his message.
Stock describes himself as largely self taught though he did
study photography formally in the 1970s at Harvard College. Since
then, he has had his work displayed at such venues as the Fogg
Museum, the Blue Sky Museum, the Santa Monica College Photography
Gallery, the Long Beach Museum of Art, the Angels Gate Cultural
Center and the University of Sinaloa. His work has been published
in numerous publications, most notably Arts Rag, the New York Times
and the Boston Phoenix.
His work shows two conflicting traditions – the large Western
landscape made famous by Ansel Adams and the tradition of American
document, showing the interaction between man and nature.
"Around the mid ’70s a group came out called the New
Topographics," explains Jonathan Green, the director of the UC
Irvine Museum of Photography. "They weren’t so concerned with
glorifying this pristine landscape, but what man has done to its
detriment."
This exhibit will follow up on that tradition for Stock. Much of
the photography is environmental by nature, an aspect Stock looked
to expand more after the exhibit first premiered in Portland in
1996.
"Actually it’s going to be very similar," Stock says. "Many of
the pieces are going to be the same but this show is more coherent
and I’ve been trying to get them to made into a book. This show is
also more closely connected to social activism whereas the show in
Portland was mainly done for a group of art-lovers. I like this
show because I like the idea of my work being connected to
activism."
Stock’s enthusiasm for social relevance in his work is not
surprising. He credits his strong roots in fine art and
photographic tradition with a healthy background in jobs in gas
stations, factories, machine shops, shipyards and on the docks.
"My photography deals with the culture we live in," Stock says.
"To me it’s important not to work in isolation like in the art
world. It’s important to interact with society, with people, learn
as much as I can about people in this country. I’m interested in
not just making art for other artists or that only exists in the
art world. I like to keep one foot in the art world and the other
in the bigger reality of our society."
Stock makes a distinction in his work between the environmental
and the cultural. His work is at once descriptive of environmental
harm but at a second and third glance they deal with a human
quality.
"The photographs aren’t strictly environmental," Stock says.
"While they are environmental, they also deal with social issues.
So they are about the land and nature but they are also about our
culture and society in broader ways."
This is what makes Stock’s work unique. His images do not
blatantly depict the harm man has done to nature. Rather, Stock
allows those qualities to remain subtle.
"The wonderful thing about David’s work is that he
simultaneously shows the beauty of the land and man’s interaction
with nature and how man has diminished that beauty," Green
says.
ART: "Prisoners of Our Own Device" is on display at the
Kerckhoff Art Gallery through April 24. Admission is free. Gallery
hours are 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. For more information, call (310)
206-4438.
AELIA KHAN
"Private Property" is one of David Stock’s photographs that will
be exhibited by the Environmental Coalition in the Kerckhoff Art
Gallery.