Object number2025.11
Hudson Valley Washington Concrete Bend
Date2020
Artist
Letha Wilson
(American, born 1976)
CultureAmerican
MediumUnique chromogenic print, concrete, UV print, aluminum frame
DimensionsFramed: 24 1/4 x 32 1/4 x 1 1/4 in. (61.6 x 81.9 x 3.2 cm)
Credit LinePurchase, Advisory Council for Photography
On View
Not on viewPeriod21st c
Classification(s)
SignedOn verso, signed lower right corner in marker: Letha Wilson
InscribedOn verso, by artist, lower left corner in marker: Hudson Valley Washington Concrete Bend, 2020; lower right corner [signature]
Label TextHudson Valley-based artist Letha Wilson asks, “What are ways to navigate a more meaningful and thoughtful approach to our natural environment?” For over twenty years, Wilson has pushed the limits of landscape photography, using techniques of sculpture to bring together physical elements, experiences, and images of the land. She uses the photographic image as a tactile object, making “sculptural gestures” to highlight how photographs cannot fully embody the places they represent. Wilson arranges photographs of plant and forest life in the Hudson Valley and in Washington State in a box frame, folded and wrinkled, and then pours in concrete, which pools and hardens in the negative space between the photographic materials. Though mostly abstract, this work illustrates how natural and human-made environments coexist and clash. We are never fully in or apart from nature.
Wilson questions what defines “landscape” as a genre of fine art and asks us to think critically about the idyllic landscape that surrounds us in the Hudson Valley. This new acquisition is part of the Loeb’s current effort to rethink the legacy of the so-called Hudson River School and the myriad ways artists have interpreted and responded to the land in this region.
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge.
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