Historical Marker: Photographs Along the Lewis and Clark Trail

Photographer Justin Newhall takes on the myths of the American West, tracing their subtle but inescapable residue in contemporary junkscapes of parking lots, stores, parks, monuments, and suburban tracts. He picks out the sculptural abstractions in a lakeside picnic area in South Dakota, and documents a shaggy heap of invasive Russian olive trees sprawling dumbly along an Oregon highway. The results are poignant, pungent, and absurd, sometimes all at once. An image of a display window in Idaho, where family shoes commingle with plastic eggs, could be an oblique allusion to countless westward marches by folks who followed Lewis and Clark in search of something better. Fans of Robert Adams, Joel Sternfeld, and William Eggleston will recognize a keen affinity here. 711 W. Lake St., Minneapolis; (612) 824-5500; www.mncp.org


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