"Fire as omen and elemental force, as metaphor and searing personal experience-these are the subjects explored in the exhibition Facing Fire. The artists are like poets who enter a burning building to bring us back reports of majesty, fear, flame, and alarm. California's diverse ecologies are fire-prone, fire-adapted, even fire-dependent. In the past two decades, however, West Coast wildfires have exploded in scale and severity. There is a powerful consensus that we have entered a new era. The artists of Facing Fire bring ...
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"Fire as omen and elemental force, as metaphor and searing personal experience-these are the subjects explored in the exhibition Facing Fire. The artists are like poets who enter a burning building to bring us back reports of majesty, fear, flame, and alarm. California's diverse ecologies are fire-prone, fire-adapted, even fire-dependent. In the past two decades, however, West Coast wildfires have exploded in scale and severity. There is a powerful consensus that we have entered a new era. The artists of Facing Fire bring us incendiary work from active fire lines and psychic burn zones. In addition to artists obsessed with the elemental, the exhibition features work by all of California's top acknowledged fire photography specialists. Together, they face fire, sift its aftermath, and struggle with the implications. Text by Douglas McCulloh: 12 short essays on the crisis of increasing wildfire and 16 short essays on artists in the book. Art by Noah Berger, Kevin Cooley, Josh Edelson, Samantha Fields, Jeff Frost, Luther Gerlach, Christian Houge, Richard Hutter, Christoph Kapeller, Benoit Malphettes, Anna Mayer, Cody Norris, Stuart Palley, Norma I. Quintana, Justin Sullivan, Joan Wulf. Published in conjunction with the exhibition held at UCR ARTS: California Museum of Photography, February 22-August 9, 2020"--
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