See ‘Landscapes of Extraction’ at Phoenix Art Museum
While mining is one of the most significant industries in the U.S., few people make art about it.
But in a show that features media from photographs to watercolor paintings to lithographs, Phoenix Art Museum is telling the American mining story.
“Landscapes of Extraction: The Art of Mining in the American West,” opened Nov. 7 and runs through March 6, 2022, in the museum’s Steele Gallery. Featuring more than 80 paintings, prints and sculptures dating from the 1910s to today, the exhibition shares the history, impact and art of mining in western America.
Curated by Betsy Fahlman, Phoenix Art Museum’s adjunct curator of American art, “Landscapes of Extraction” is the first major exhibition of Western American art at the Museum since “The
West Select” exhibition in 2014.
“It tells the story of one of the most important industries in America,” Fahlman said. “We can hardly have anything that isn’t connected to mining. The plastic water bottle, the gas in my car, you name it. It all comes from mining. The gallery tells this great national story that has a particular impact on the American West.”
From New Deal-era paintings which honor the hardworking miners in the Depression era to Edward Burtynksy’s photographs which share the ecological effects, the exhibition tells the full story of the industry. Other notable artists include Lew Davis, Philip C. Curtis, Paul Sample and Louise Emerson from the early to mid-20th century and contemporary artists David Emitt Adams, Martin Stupich, Cara Romero and Erika Osborne.
“I wanted to tell a story that was not only about one period, but also about
how those issues came into the present,” Fahlman said.
Why Erika Osborne’s ‘The Chasm of Bingham’ is featured
If you’ve driven by the Phoenix Art Museum lately, you’ve probably seen a large photograph of Osborne’s oil on linen painting, “The Chasm of Bingham” on the front of the museum. It’s the cover art for the entire exhibition and there’s a reason why, Fahlman said.
“She captures both parts of the show absolutely beautifully,” Fahlman said. “I wanted to tell a story that was not only about one period, but also about how those issues came into the present.”
Osborne always loved art; it ran in the family. Her aunt was a printmaker, her uncle, an illustrator, and her grandmother, a painter. She’d always attached herself to the outdoors, too, and trees were some of Osborne’s first sketches. She still draws them.
And while co-director of “Landscapes of the American West” at the University of New Mexico — where she is also a professor — Osborne began tracing why she photographed and painted landscapes as she did.
In the process, she discovered the Hudson River School artists who painted the Western landscape in the mid-1900s. Artists like Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Moran were hired by railroad companies to paint the West and support tourism.
Her painting is modeled after artist Thomas Moran’s “The Chasm of the Colorado,” except in her painting, Osborne depicts the Bingham Copper mine just southwest of Salt Lake City.
“I thought, ‘how interesting that I want to make paintings in a particular aesthetic fashion that’s referential to these Hudson River School painters?’ Osborne said. “But I thought, what if I use the visual language of the Hudson River School to paint the artifacts of Manifest Destiny as we see them in the west today?”
Osborne completed the 48-by-90inch “The Chasm of Bingham” in 2012 after working on it 20 hours a week for 9 months. The painting is one of a larger project, “Re-Manifesting Destiny,” Osborne said, which explores the industrial effects from the era. The project looks at the culture of Manifest Destiny — from the mines to military industrial encampments and freeways — to show its effects today. Manifest Destiny was the
idea that the European settlers in the U.S. were destined by God to expand across the country.
“With mining, we’re changing landscapes that have taken millions and millions of years to develop and changing them in a matter of decades,” Osborne said. “we’re doing all these things at just such a grand scale, that they have impacts that things like ice ages and meteors and volcanic eruptions have on the planet.”
Here are 10 paintings you won’t want to miss
According to museum curator Dr. Betsy Fahlman, these are the paintings
you’ll want to see while you visit the exhibit:
● “The Miner” by Kenneth Miller Adams, 1937
● “Oil Field Girls” by Jerry Bywaters, 1940
● “Oil Hoist, Ramsey Mine, Ramsey, Nevada” by Maynard Dixon, 1927
● “Bingham Mine” by Jonas Lie, 1917
● “Oil Boom” by Cara Romero, 2015
● “The Chasm of Bingham” by Erika Osborne, 2012
● “Morenci Panorama by Martin Stupichs, 1986
● Edward Byrtynski: Oil Fields in Belridge California, 2002
● “Copper Camp — Spring” by Lew
Davis, 1936
● “Morning at the Little Daisy, Jerome” by Lew Davis, 1936
‘Landscapes of Extraction’
Where: Phoenix Art Museum,1625 N. Central Ave., Phoenix. 602-257-1880, https://phxart.org.
When: Through March 6, 2022. Cost: Free for members; $23 for adults; $20 for seniors; $18 for college students; $14 for youth ages 6-17; free for kids 5 and younger.