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Andrew Beckham: Firmament

Andrew Beckham Artist Talk and Book Signing

Don’t miss a rare opportunity to tour the FAC’s magnificent exhibition Andrew Beckham: Firmament with the artist himself!

The Fine Arts Center has timed the exhibition to be presented simultaneously with the publishing of a gorgeous new book representing the extensive body of photographs in Firmament.

Beckham will discuss his photographs and career before signing copies of his new book.

Saturday, November 16, 2013
2:00 p.m.
Copies of Andrew Beckham: Firmament from GFT Publishing are available at the Fine Arts Center box office.

“Firmamentis a benchmark in Beckham’s ongoing consideration of photography’s intrinsic capacity to depict physical aspects of the landscape and simultaneously to suggest the presence of mystery and time,” says Blake Milteer, the FAC’s Museum Director and Chief Curator.

Three bodies of work constitute Firmament, each with Beckham’s recognition of place as a starting point for deeper questions. From One Square-Mile to Twenty-Thousand Square-Miles, to An Incalculable Distance, the title of each portfolio defines a proximal footprint. As if “streaming” a symphonic work in three movements, Beckham begins with a seemingly solitary meander through a backcountry wilderness in the wooded foothills of the Rocky Mountains west of his home. Next, he walks the aggressive openness of the Great Plains in the Sand Hills of Nebraska and introduces human assertion into Firmament by depicting subtle traces of industry in context with the expanse of prairie grasses and big sky. Finally, Beckham interweaves images of historic star charts with his own pictures of various wild landscapes and personal artifacts that, when blended into a seamless composition, represent quietly reflective moments and materials about one’s place in the world.

Individually and together, One Square-Mile, Twenty-Thousand Square-Miles, and An Incalculable Distance not only depict Beckham’s recognition and reckoning of the tangible and mysterious layers inherent in every person’s life, but they remind us of similar potential and responsibility in our own — the firmament to be found within us and in the places that surround us.