American Silence: The Photographs of Robert Adams

Robert Adams' (*1937) ongoing body of work now spans five decades. His photography narrates the evolution of American landscapes, allows their beauty to leak out and captures the inadequate human response. The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., is dedicating a solo show to the photographer and his narrative of people and landscape from 29 May.

American Silence divides Adams' images into three chapters that place the chronology of devastation in a moral context: The Gift, Our Response and Tenancy. The sections hold 175 photographs of the artist's major projects. They show suburbs, shopping malls, highways, houses, shops, rivers, the sky, the prairie and the sea. As a counterpoint to destroyed landscapes, some of the photographs also function as a homage to what remains.

The exhibition title refers to »the reverential way he looks at the world around him and the almost palpable silence of his work«, says the National Art Gallery. Interested visitors can find the exhibition until 2 October on the ground floor of the West Building, in galleries 23-29.