Denver Art Museum exhibits Robert Adams'

This section included photographs from "Prairie," "Perfect Times, Perfect Place," "Pine Valley," and "This Day." (Photo by Paul Skorupskas from Unsplash)

The Denver Art Museum recently showcased Robert Adams' photographs in three quasi-religious sections: "The Gift," "Our Response," and "Tenancy."

The report says that Adams hailed from New Jersey and moved to Colorado when he was 15. As a teenager with love for photography, he often rode his bike from his suburbs to downtown Denver.

Who Is Robert Adams?

According to a report by The New Yorker, Adams would snap pictures with Kodak Instamatic in a search for a true West.

He took photos of the old churches and graves of indigenous and Hispanic communities in Southern Colorado, the grasslands of Northeastern Colorado, and the suburbs of Denver and Colorado Springs.

He would also photograph these places in a rich black-and-white tone with a focus on "the silence of light."

As Adams advanced as a photographer, he saw the gifts and the threats to the landscape.

The exhibition reportedly featured Adams' works, including photos of churches, strip malls, stores, highways, homes, skies, and the ocean.

It highlighted his work's evolution, the importance of his faith to passion, and the relationship between past and present.

'The Gift'

As reported, the exhibition began with "The Gift," which presented photographs revealing the landscape's silence, beauty, peace, and spiritual harmony.

This section included photographs from "Prairie," "Perfect Times, Perfect Place," "Pine Valley," and "This Day."

Adams mostly took photographs in Colorado, an area with which he is reportedly intimately familiar.

They also demonstrated his ability to find the sparse and fragile American West's sublime, often overlooked corners.

According to Art Blart, Adams deeply understood how light comes into play in photos.

He said that the act enabled his photographs to illuminate the authenticity of the world and showed "a quiet so absolute that it allows one to begin again, to love the future."

'Our Response'

Meanwhile, the 'Our Response' section was the largest exhibition among the three and examined how Americans responded to the West's potential and vulnerability.

All of these are divided into six thematic subjects in chronological arrangement.

It began with photographs from Adams' earliest works, which he titled "Early Hispanic and Plains Communities." Also included are the following works: "White Churches of the Plains," "The Architecture and Art of Early Hispanic Colorado," and "Prairie."

The photographs in this section portrayed the respectful nature of the West's older settlements and demonstrated how early settlers attempted to be united with nature instead of dominating it.

"Our Imprint on the Land" and "A New West" followed Adams' early works.

These featured his seminal early works, which aimed to provide a reflection of the past and an assessment of the present.

The photographs also addressed the building of a new American environment that was isolated and lacked community.

These photographs were followed by "Our Lives and Our Children," which depicted what would be lost in a nuclear disaster.

"Southern California" and "A Mythic Forest" concluded the section. These included photographs that illustrated the destruction of fragile landscapes and depicted the exploitation of the forests in the Northwest.

'Tenancy'

Lastly, the 'Tenancy' is the section that concluded Adams' exhibition and featured a series of photographs taken between 2013 and 2015.

The photographs depicted the eastern edge of the Nehalem Spit, the spit itself, and the ever-changing beauty of the ocean.

According to Adams, these photographs also illustrated his belief that humans are only temporary residents of the world.

Just like his other works, photographs from this section also demonstrate the beauty of the given landscape, humans' unworthy response, and the current deprivation or judgment.