Through Nov. 15, the Baldwin Photographic Gallery at MTSU will display Mark Klett: Ideas About Time, featuring nearly 50 works from several photographic projects created by Klett individually or collaboratively over the last 35 years.
A renowned photographer and educator, Klett is interested in making new works that respond to historic images, exploring the language of photographic media through technology, and creating projects that explore relationships between time, change and perception.
Klett’s background includes working as a geologist before turning to photography. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, The Pollock-Krasner Foundation and the Japan/US Friendship Commission. His work has been exhibited and published in the United States and internationally for over 35 years and is held in over 80 museum collections worldwide. He is the author or co-author of 15 books.
Klett now lives in Tempe, Arizona, where he is Regents’ Professor of Art at Arizona State University.
In all of his projects, time has been a recurring theme. Klett developed this signature approach early in his career with the Rephotographic Project (1977–79). Klett and his team would locate the position and perspective of an original historic image from the late 1800s, determine its time of day and season to best match lighting conditions and then make a photograph in present time. Twenty years later, Klett rephotographed these sites again for the Third View Project.
Continued collaborations, explorations and new media applications expanded Klett’s notions of time, and the work continues to evolve.
In addition to the Rephotographic Project and the Third View Project, projects represented in the MTSU exhibition include Yosemite in Time, After the Ruins, Saguaro Portraits: Desert Citizens, Reconstructing the View, The Enola Gay Series and El Camino del Diablo.
The Baldwin Photographic Gallery is located in Room 269 in the John Bragg College of Media and Entertainment Building at MTSU. Hours are 8 a.m.–4:30 p.m. on weekdays when university classes are in session.
For more information, contact jackie.heigle@mtsu.edu or 615-904-8458.
