Western Contemporary, Strata’s first collection and exhibition, presents works that reflect, envision, and connect places, beings, and ideas in the American West.
Featured Artists
Ian Bates
Matt Calarco
Pascale Georgiev
Carlos Jaramillo
Ron Jude
Cassandra Klos
Susan Lipper
Jim Mangan
Zora J Murff
Tom de Peyret
Wendy Red Star
Miraj Patel
Mimi Plumb
Bryan Schutmaat
Sheida Soleimani
For the launch of Strata Editions, I curated a selection of books and photographs recently made in the American West. As someone who grew up in the South, I’ve always had a hankering to move west. More seems possible in the West—wide open. The first time I visited Montana a few summers back, I was in awe of the scale of the landscape and surprised at both how free and at home I felt.
I’ve long had a dream of creating a rural photo space, so of course, sharing photographs of and made in the West seemed like a good place to start. The West is a straightforward entry point for understanding contemporary photography: people can recognize a photograph that was made in the West whether it is sparse and full of foreboding (like Susan Lipper’s Domesticated Land) or colorful and celebratory (like Carlos Jaramillo’s photographs of the charrería in Tierra del Sol). The West lends itself to exploration and imagination; artists make their visions come to life against its seemingly blank canvas—as in Jim Mangan’s The Crick, where boys perform old westerns in the deserts of Utah; Cassandra Klos’s Mars on Earth, in which she leads teams of mock-astronauts on simulated missions to Mars; or Matt Calarco’s physical manipulations of his personal photo archive of the West for False Summits.
While it hasn’t been easy—or even truly possible—to get a rope around the theme Western Contemporary in such a small collection, we hope that by bringing multiple perspectives into conversation, to represent the depth of current photographic explorations of the region, and the land itself.
— Will Warasila
Programming
Artist Talk with Bryan Schutmaat
Tuesday, March 26
6:30–7:30pm
Join us for a talk with Bryan Schutmaat, a photographer based in Austin, Texas whose work has been widely exhibited and published. He has won numerous awards, including a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, the Aperture Portfolio Prize, and an Aaron Siskind Fellowship. Bryan’s prints are held in many collections, such as the Baltimore Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Pier 24 Photography, Rijksmuseum, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. He co-founded the imprint, Trespasser.
Strata Editions is proud to carry Bryan’s publication, Good Goddamn, as part of our first collection, Western Contemporary; this publication was generously made available by the artist and is sold out elsewhere.
Chico Review
Charcoal Book Club
Thursday, March 21
11am–6pm
Private reception and refreshments for Chico Review friends and attendees.
Join Strata Editions for our first collection of photobooks, photographic prints, and designs that study and celebrate present reflections, visions, and connections of place, beings, and ideas in the American West.
Opening Reception
Friday, March 8
5–8pm
For the launch of Strata, we are taking over Placed, a gallery in Livingston, Montana highlighting artists whose work is made meaningful through the local while giving the local its meaning.
Placed
116 West Lewis St
Livingston, MT
59047