A new book about the photography of Mark Klett '74 has been published,
and Klett has earned a prestigious nomination from Arizona State
University, where he is professor of art.
View Finder: Mark Klett, Photography and the Reinvention of
Landscape, by William Fox, was recently published by the University
of New Mexico Press. According to the publishers, "Mark Klett has been
photographing the American West for nearly 25 years. He directed the
Rephotographic Survey Project in the late 1970s, which located and
rephotographed the sites of images made by William Henry Jackson, Timothy O’Sullivan, and
other photographers surveying the West in the late 19th century. Klett has also
published several books of his own work. Using his travels in the Nevada desert
with Klett and his current rephotographic team as the starting point, William Fox
offers here an examination of the history of photography in the American West and
of Klett’s role in documenting the landscape. Like the story of photography
itself, this is a multilayered narrative. Part historical overview, part
travel journal, part biographical study of Klett, View Finder explores the
evolution of our view of the land from the mid-19th century to the present day.
Fox looks at the legacy left by the likes of Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and
Robert Adams. And in focusing on the work of Klett in the last quarter-century, Fox
reflects upon the meaning of the landscape at the beginning of the millennium.
Because Klett’s work has been so closely connected to the great photographic
surveys of the 1870s, and because he has been so influential to a new generation
of photographers, his is the ideal viewpoint from which to measure our changing
approach to the American space."
Klett is one of five ASU professors recently nominated to the position of
Regents professor. The designation is for professors who "are marked by excellence
in teaching, exceptional achievements in research or other creative activities,
and national and international distinction in their fields," according to the
university. In addition, Regents professors serve as advisors to the president
and take on a broader role as consultants and teachers throughout Arizona State
University.
Klett joined the faculty at ASU in 1982.