ART-PRESENTATION: Clifford Ross-Landscape Seen or Imagined

Clifford Ross is perhaps most known for his black & white “Hurricane” series, a collection of 14 large-scale, high-resolution photographs of violent storm waves shot by the artist himself in the midle of a violent storm. “Clifford Ross: Landscape Seen & Imagined”, is a multi-media exhibition that takes place at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: MASS MoCA Archive

Clifford Ross’s exhibition, documents the longstanding project to reconcile realism and abstraction, through the use of unconventional methods of shooting and printing, and the interplay of extreme scale and microscopic detail, drawing connections between the natural elements of waves and mountains and music and architecture, through images that are simultaneously monumental and lyrical. Among other works, the exhibition includes a photograph on raw wood that spans the length of MASS MoCA’s tallest gallery and an immersive installation of animated video on twelve separate screens. Ross’s hyper-detailed photographs of hurricane waves and mountains are included along with a new Invisible art project featuring animated virtual elements only accessible by means of the viewer’s smartphone. Also is included a new series of video works entitled “Digital Hurricane Waves”. Within a loft-like trussed gallery adjacent to the space containing the first American exhibition of Ross’s new large-scale “Hurricane” prints, computer-generated renderings of complex fluid dynamics are projected onto large screens, which combine to form what the artist calls “Wave Cathedral”, capturing all the lyricism, truth of movement and eccentricity of a breaking wave.

Info: Landscape Seen or Imagined, Curator: Joseph Thompson, MASS MoCA, 1040 MASS MoCA Way, North Adams, Massachusetts, U.S.A., Duration: 3/8-27/9/15, Days & Hours: Sun-Wed: 10:00-18:00, Thu-Sat: 10:00-19:00. From 9/9/27/9/15 the “Wave Cathedral”, will be open Wed-Mon: 13:00-17:00, www.massmoca.org