Great Western Divide

850 Words4 Pages
A day within the Contemporary Jewish Museum brings me to a small exhibition by a variety of artists called Night Begins the Day. I find the title of the art show interesting as it brings up this idea that although the night begins the day, the day, in a sense, also begins the night. A never ending cycle of sorts. I began to look around the exhibition and a photograph by Christopher Woodcock catches my attention called the Great Western Divide. Having known the theme and title of the exhibition I was intrigued with the photo as it resembled a land formation that could only be found on the moon. Since the title suggests that some art works would have aspects of space in it, I wondered about the origin of the subject of the photograph. Where…show more content…
I saw it was this huge formation that would tower over skyscrapers in downtown San Francisco. Upon closer inspection, I was able to see the finer details of the photograph. The mountain was steep, craggy and riddled with deep and shallow crevices. Its rough texture can be felt through the strong contrast of the shadows and rocks. Looking at it for a longer period of time I begin to see it another perspective. Other than being this humongous body in space, I saw it as a fragment or a part of a piece of rock seen with microscope, a “zoomed-in” observation of a rock. I thought it looked like another world that could only be see trough a microscope. It was easy to lose a certain perspective while I was looking at it. My mind switches perspectives from time to time, which I think is partly due to the lack of a background. Usually mountains are accompanied by a blue sky with discernible clouds. This lacked such imagery of peace and tranquility. Behind this rock or mountain was darkness which aided the idea that it could have been taken in space. There is depth within the rock it self but that does not exist within the background. It is an ambiguous photograph that blurs the line of perspective which makes us question what we’re seeing. This accounts for the theme of space. He uses the idea cosmos as part of his composition to…show more content…
Like many of the other works in the exhibition it allowed viewers to form their own meaning and interpretation of the work. The photograph according to the information provided, explores the idea and meaning of the sublime. In which the original philosophy of the sublime was based on the appreciation of the majesty of the cosmos combined with the existential feeling of anxiety and understanding that an individual human is minuscule compared to the outer space. This notion has been well executed by the photograph. I was enthralled by the mystery and ambiguity of the photo. It took me to what I thought was the surface of the moon. It made me think about my place in the cosmos. The information on the side continues on to say that the photo was not taken at high noon but in the middle of the night and he only used the moonlight to create the exposure. The artist truly challenged and redefined what night and day is. Even his process of taking the photo accounts for the theme of time and

More about Great Western Divide

Open Document