Robert Koch Gallery present « new World Atlas : California & Nevada »American photographer Matt Black.
Known for its visceral approach to documentary photography, Black focuses on the evolution of the climate of the American West, using thermal and infrared imagery to examine the effects of extreme weather phenomena and the vulnerabilities of a rapid mutation landscape.
The New World Atlas is organized in 17 chapters, one for each state located west of the 100th meridian. This exhibition presents California and Nevada, the first two chapters of this vast corpus. In this series, Black moves away from conventional photographic representation and incorporates technologies that widen human perception. Thermal imagery makes the invisible visible, allowing the spectator to observe the heat as a sign of change, from drought to the fire, to evaporation. Infrared photography distinguishes the lifetime of the inert, revealing a moving terrain under what once seemed immutable.
Installed in the California central valley, Black relies on its own experience of environmental volatility in the region. He writes: “The gigantic fires, extreme droughts and millennial floods reshape the American West. From my house, I saw the gigantic fires of the Sierra Nevada fill the sky of smoke and more than 200,000 hectares of agricultural land fall into a fallow of water. By working on the subhumid and arid areas of the American West, particularly sensitive to variations in temperature and humidity, New World Atlas offers an urgent and deeply felt chronicle of ecological transformation. Rather than documenting only disasters, Black images invite the spectator to consider new ways of seeing and understanding a landscape increasingly marked by extremes.
Matt Black : New World Atlas: California & Nevada
Until June 27, 2025
Robert Koch Gallery
49 Geary Street | Fifth Floor
San Francisco, CA 94108 · USA
www.kochgallery.com
