Critique of "Far Out: The West Re-Seen" by Victoria Sambunaris

Photographs by Victoria Sambunaris
Exhibition featured at Brigham Young University's Museum of Art
On display from October 20th, 2020 - May 1st, 2021

Victoria Sambunaris’ exhibit titled Far Out: The West Re-Seen features her photographic works depicting the relationship between American West landscapes and man. Her photographs stray away from traditionally romanticized Western landscape portrayals and favors more disenchanted land formations already inhabited (and often exploited) by man. This project documents the interactions between people and land, and the beauty that can be found in that interaction.


Upon entrance of Sambunaris’ exhibit, the chromogenic-printed photographs immediately envelop the viewer, due to their colossal sizes. Despite the incredible scale of the prints, such fine detail is retained, due to Sambunaris’ employment of the large-format field camera. This choice to print photographs on a large scale intends to enfold the viewer into a new sense of place, specifically the places photographed. It’s as if the viewer is given the opportunity to stand exactly where Sambunaris once stood. If these photographs were printed much smaller, the impact of the photographs would be far different, drastically changing the affect on the viewer. Overall, the choice of print sizes enhances the viewer’s experience, and enhances Sambunaris’ posed narratives.

Sambunaris depicts natural and man-made subjects in this series. The photographs show naturally-occurring geographic features that can be tied to the American West, such as flat plains, desert lands and vegetation, and sedimentary rock walls. These features are photographed in different times of the year, often either in summer’s heat or winter’s snow. In addition to geographic depictions, each photograph contains different ways people have inhabited and used the land, such as building homes, railroads, and power plants. One particular photograph (photograph number 8 shown above) shows a stand-alone rock formation in the middle of a wintry field, seemingly unaffected by man - but upon closer examination, the viewer can see several instances of graffiti and other alterations to the rock formation. Compositionally, Sambunaris favors simplicity and minimalism to create a sense of scale and atmosphere. She often integrates a deadpan aesthetic into her compositions to further instill a specific narrative of slight cynicism.

Sambunaris retains many Modernist values in her exhibit and in her systematic approach. Her photographs display a keen awareness of form and aesthetics through the use of balanced color palettes, captivating patterns and interweaving lines, detailed focus, smooth tonal ranges, and dynamic compositions. These qualities in her photographs are accomplished by Sambunaris’ rigorous compositions and patient adherence to naturally-occuring phenomena. Also, a strong sense of realism exists in all her photographs, similar to straight-photographers of the emerging Modernist movement in the early 20th century. The realism maintained in Sambunaris’ photographs is enhanced by her intentionally-antiquated methods of photographing on a large-format field camera.

The West Re-Seen shifts over to a more Postmodern tone with the incorporation of human interaction in her photographs. By including people’s usage of the land in her photographs, Sambunaris rejects a prominent tradition in landscape photography of keeping everything in the photograph “pristine” and “untouched” by man. The landscape becomes more about reality, specifically the land's coexistence with humankind. Yet, overall, a sort of romanticism - another tenet of the landscape genre - permeates through the seeming mundaneness of her photographs. Messages become more apparent in the photograph opposed to a complete focus on form. But overall, Sambunaris’ exhibit is a blend of both Modernism and Postmodernism - Modernist in her photographic approach, prioritization of realism, and attention to form - and Postmodernist in her emphasis of visual narratives in landscape photography, and her portrayals of romanticizing this nature-humankind relationship.


One word can be used to describe Sambunaris’ The West Re-Seen: "sublime". Not just in the sense of singular grandeur and awe, but astonishment being simultaneous with dread. 18th century philosopher Edmund Burke defines this idea of the sublime best in association to The West Re-Seen:
“Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain, and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling... The passion caused by the great and the sublime in nature, when those causes operate most powerfully, is Astonishment; and astonishment is that state of the soul, in which all its motions are suspended, with some degree of horror.”
During the 18th century, Burke’s ideas about the sublime became foundational to the English Romantics’ artistic expressions. The Romantic artists of the 18th century applied Burke’s framework of "the sublime" found in his treatise of aesthetics titled A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful to create art that would elevate the viewer’s emotions to utter astonishment and horror. Considering Sambunaris’ work in the context of Burke’s idea of "the sublime", one can identify qualities in her photographs that evoke a simultaneous sense of awe and dread. Her work does depart from the 18th century Romantics of Europe by removing the fantastic elements, and staying true to reality - but constituents of Burke’s sublimity do still remain in subtlety.

Consider Sambunaris’ photograph titled Border Fence (photography number 7 shown above). In the photograph is a desert landscape in Arizona, seen from a high vantage point atop a hill. Nothing quite extraordinary exists in the photograph, unlike other photographs in the landscape genre. What makes the photograph so intriguing is the large border fence separating the same land in half. Suddenly, man has invaded the pristine Arizonian beauty, creating a structure only meant to divide. Considering the purpose of the wall, the photograph is changed into a different idea. Border Fence instills the sublime in a viewer by simultaneously viewing a tranquil Arizonian landscape tainted with man’s carnal instinct to obtain territory, and this sublimity is extracted from an acute sense of reality maintained in Sambunaris’ work. This concept found in Border Fence exists throughout the rest of The West Re-Seen.

The dissonance between awe and dread creates a sort of confusion in the viewer. Traditionally, landscape photography is rather plain in its approach - search for the most pristine locations, and photograph them in such a way that they become transcendent. But, Sambunaris departs from that notion by grounding her work in realism and photographing locations no longer pristine. The interruptions from man’s touch in the landscape photographs confuse the viewer, and therefore ask certain questions, such as: is the American West still as alluring as it once was? Should land be preserved or used? What is man’s relationship to nature, and vice versa? Should one reign supreme over the other? And so forth.

Luckily, with even further examination, Sambunaris provides many answers to the previous questions through the visual language of her photographs. Many photographs in the exhibit portray industrialization and landscape harmoniously, with a balanced composition where both subjects are strategically placed to complement each other. This communicates a respectful and harmonious relationship between humankind and the land, wherein the land is still preserved, and man still can progress. But, some other photographs incorporate the opposite message through color, tone, and composition - specifically in the photograph Untitled Black Rock (photograph number 8 shown above). The composition centers the subject in the frame in a winter setting, creating a deadpan aesthetic that communicates passivity and gloom. With close examination, the viewer can identify graffiti and other man-made alterations in the black rock formation. This photograph communicates criticism towards the disrespect that people often show to nature. Considering both of the aforementioned examples and the overall dissonance occurring within each photograph, one can surmise that The West Re-Seen advocates for a more harmonious relationship between nature and humankind, where humankind can still progress, and nature’s essence is retained - further enhancing each photograph's inherent beauty beyond its masterful use of form and aesthetics.


Altogether, The West Re-Seen is a grand success for the revival of landscape photography in a Postmodern world, and in advocacy for better land treatment. Because the art world has shifted favor from mastery in craft over to the communication of profound messages, traditional landscape photography has lost much of its relevance. To make landscape photography more relevant in a Postmodern world where message is valued more than craft, other elements beyond nature needed to be integrated in the medium - and Sambunaris demonstrated how such integration can be done in The West Re-Seen. By integrating the involvement of people in different Western geographic areas, Sambunaris created a dialogue in her series, which contributed to the relevancy of landscape photography in Postmodern art. If she focused more on craft and traditional landscape photography tenets, her work might not have been as applicable to the Postmodern conversation. This dialogue then creates a sense of sublimity in the viewer, where the grandeur of the photograph is simultaneously present alongside the interruption of people’s creations and exploitations within. Furthermore, the dialogue instigated through the photographs’ visual semiotics leads many viewers to consider man’s role in relation to Earth. This dialogue, considered alongside visual language, acts as a question, and an answer, regarding the relationship between nature and humankind. The dialogue asks, “How should the relationship between humankind and nature be?” And then, through visual semiotics, composition, and aesthetics, the answer becomes clear: this relationship needs to be one of balance - specifically, humankind needs to respect nature enough to understand when to preserve the land, and when it’s appropriate to use the land. Understanding these messages does take time to extract, due to the subtle and nuanced approach from Sambunaris in her series - but the messages are especially important today, and Sambunaris communicates it in a balanced and agreeable way. The West Re-Seen requires a general understanding of how visual semiotics create certain dialogues, and a subsequent meditative contemplation to discern the nuances in Sambunaris’ work. Her approach to the ideas expressed in her photographs is nothing short of masterful.