#6237 by Todd Hido

The Jen Bekman Gallery in New York just sent us the press release of their new exhibition: Land Use Survey, a group exhibition featuring photographs, paintings and works on paper by twenty-seven artists. From the press note:

Land Use Survey functions as a critical appraisal of land use across the country, as a document of the changing landscape vernacular, and as a celebration of the artists who take diverse approaches to capturing this genre. The show opens with a series of landscapes that remain untouched by man. Slowly, signs of human intrusion begin to appear: car tracks, empty bottles, a retaining wall and piles of dirt. As one progresses through the exhibition, both in the gallery space and within the areas described by the works, increasingly more land turns over to commercial and residential development, before finally giving way to the dizzying geometries of the modern metropolis.

Dusk, Cumberland Farms, Provincetown, 1976 by Joel Meyerowitz

Greyfield #2 by Michelle Muldrow

The exhibition features work by Ian Baguskas, Chris Ballantyne, Beth Dow, Christoph Gielen, Todd Hido, Liz Kuball, Nick Lamia, Scott Lawrence, Michael Lundgren, Alex MacLean, David Maisel, Paho Mann, Louisa McElwain, Sarah McKenzie, Joel Meyerowitz, Dana Miller, Brad Moore, Matthew Moore, Michelle Muldrow, Justin Newhall, Ross Racine, Tyson Anthony Roberts, Andrew Scott Ross / Scott Lawrence, Aili Schmeltz, Bryan Schutmaat, Alec Soth and William Wegman.

Housing Development at Different Stages, Las Vegas, NV, March 2005 by Alex Maclean

The exhibition reminds us of the U.S. Geological Survey Photographic Library that we featured here as a great resource of photographs focused on land use across the US, with the difference that this exhibition includes not only photography but a diverse collection of art works on the same topic: land use. New insights from the same approach, that's why we found the exhibition so interesting.

Land Use Survey will be on view Thursday, July 1 through Sunday, August 15, 2010 at Jen Bekman Gallery, located at 6 Spring Street, New York, New York.