Natural wonders like the Snake River canyon and its Shoshone Falls captivate different people for different reasons.
Evel Knievel was an entertainment artist who challenged himself to jump the canyon on his motorcycle, while others count on a camera or paintbrush to make an indelible impression.
The Sun Valley Center for the Arts, whose mission to bring a different lens to things that we take for granted as mundane or overly familiar, has brought a similar purpose to the view of the powerful, hydropower-generating Twin Falls spectacle with a multifaceted exhibit that includes a field trip to the falls this Saturday, May 19.
Affectionately dubbed the "Niagara of the West," the falls has attracted naturalists, tourists, photographers and artists for more than 100 years.
This show, curated in part by The Center's Courtney Gilbert, has exhibits in both its Hailey and Ketchum locations running now through July 6 with historic photos and artists' perspectives.
In Hailey, visitors will find the work of Benjamin Love, a Boise native and photographer who used pixel-by-pixel computer manipulation to highlight the manmade structures at the 212-foot-high waterfall along the Snake River, calling his perspective "Shoshone Falls and the Democratic Sublime."
In a press release from the Center, Gilbert explained that the term "democratic sublime" refers to a concept of the sublime in art and nature as an experience that is at once terrifying and beautiful. What makes the experience democratic is the way humans have shaped the scenery.
"The beauty of the place is of human scale, and the viewer of the falls can appreciate it because of this," Love says. "The sublime on the other hand is vast and unknowable. If we take this understanding of nature and we use Shoshone Falls as our example, the framing of the falls lessens the blow of the sublime by making it accessible to humans both physically and mentally."
Love illustrates the manmade structures around the falls designed to enable access while keeping visitors at a distance. He is working on similar exhibits from similar, lesser-known sites. Now based out of Los Angeles, the lens man's work is exhibited in museums throughout the West, including the Boise Art Museum.
A related exhibition, "Shoshone Falls: 3 Perspectives" is on display at The Center in Ketchum and includes photographs by Timothy H. O'Sullivan, Thomas Joshua Cooper and Peter de Lory. There is also a huge installation made of brown Kraft paper created especially for The Center by Wade Kavanaugh and Stephen B. Nguyen.
First is Cooper's "Shoshone Falls," a sequence of photos arranged as a conversation across 130 years. O'Sullivan first saw the falls in 1868 while employed on a 19th-century survey of the West. His images are matter-of-fact representations of what he encountered. Using O'Sullivan's work as a touchstone, Cooper developed a style using photographic images as a metaphor.
With his "Falls of the West," de Lory has developed a body of work around waterfalls, capturing those in Twin Falls during his stint as artist-in-residence for The Center in 1974.
Kavanaugh and Nguyen created "In Response to Shoshone Falls," a product of their collaboration with paper bag-like material that they twist, coil, crinkle and stack to evoke environments ranging from an old-growth forest to glaciers and crevasses. Their installations consider the role of the sublime in our experience of nature and the relationship between the natural and the constructed landscape. At The Center they created a response to Shoshone Falls by exploring the physical structure, the sensory experience it creates for visitors and issues of water flow and irrigation.
This portion of the exhibit closes July 3, with a closing lecture by Joslyn Art Museum curator Toby Jurovics.
Love's work in Hailey remains up until July 6.
The Center in Ketchum is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Hours in Hailey are 2-6 p.m. Wednesday through Friday. Admission is free to the exhibits.
Shoshone Fallsexhibit events
What: Field trip to Shoshone Falls.
When: Saturday, May 19, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
How: Sign up and get details by calling Sarah Kolash at 726-9491, ext. 21 or visit
www.sunvalleycenter.org.
Cost: $50 members, $75 nonmembers, includes lunch.
-
What: "Benjamin Love: Shoshone Falls and the Democratic Sublime"
When: Until July 6
Where: The Center, Hailey.
Cost: Free.
-
What: "Shoshone Falls: Three Perspectives" from photographers Timothy O'Sullivan, Thomas Joshua Cooper and Peter de Lory and with a paper installation by Wade Kavanaugh and Stephen B. Nguyen.
When: Until July 3, with a closing lecture by Joslyn Art Museum curator Toby Jurovics.
Where: The Center, Ketchum.
Cost: Free.
Guided tours: Of photography, during Gallery Walk on Saturday, May 26, from 5-8 p.m., with de Lory to speak at 6 p.m., on Tuesday, June 5, at 2 p.m. and by appointment, and during Gallery Walk on Friday, July 6, from 5-8 p.m. Of paper exhibit, Thursday, June 14, at 5:30 p.m.
Shoshone Falls is also called the “Niagara of the West.” The 212-foot-high falls are in Twin Falls and cascade into the Snake River Canyon.
Courtesy photo by Peter de Lory
