Terry Falke
                    Tetherballs Used by Disney Film Crew to Mark Locations for
                    Computer-Genrated Dinosaurs, California
                    1998
                     Type c print

Terry Falke
Observations in an Occupied Wilderness

March 16 through July 15, 2009
National Academy of Sciences
2100 C St., N.W., Upstairs Gallery

Open to the public Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Closed weekends and holidays.
Free.  Photo ID required.

Terry Falke’s body of wry, lyrical photographs forms an intimate and idiosyncratic portrait of the American Southwest. By emphasizing the unique beauty of the region’s landscape, Falke makes the incongruous and sometimes amusing artifacts of human presence more apparent. With a sense of humor and a remarkable ability to craft acute cultural and visual connections, Falke reveals a perceived wilderness altered by human behavior.

Whether photographing power lines or petroglyphs—or a panorama including both—Falke insists that marks of technology and development are an inevitable overlay on the American landscape. Within his frame, Falke conflates historical eras, recognizing that traces of the past coexist with present interventions in a sometimes ironic, and always multi-layered, narrative. In this sense, the photographer captures the physical and physiological legacy of human presence in the American Southwest.

Born in San Antonio, Falke has spent the better part of his life traveling and exploring the region documented in his photographs. As personal as they are provocative, the large-format photographs in this exhibition are the record of Falke’s deeply felt experience of the place he calls home.

This exhibition was organized by Nevada Museum of Art, Reno.

Image courtesy of Terry Falke and Nevada Museum of Art, Reno.

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For more information: (202) 334-2436 or cpnas@nas.edu