Jungjin Lee: Desert

Robert Frank once described the fragmentary, poetic images of New York-based photographer Jungjin Lee (born 1961) as "landscapes without the human beast."In this series, Lee captures the American southwest and transforms it with liquid light and diluted light-sensitive emulsions to create images that are as uncontrollable and natural as the landscape she depicts. Desert comprises four series of works (each bound as a separate book and presented in a unique slipcase), all of which contain monochromatic images of arid lands. Stratigraphy etched into rock faces, massive stones, cave-like precipices and anthropomorphic fauna showcase an extensive compendium of the desert's many faces and textures. Each image focuses on the landscape's formal qualities, eschewing human presence, simultaneously evoking late 19th-century photography, while epitomizing the stark modernity of Lee's lens. "As a photographer," writes Lee, "I am primarily concerned with the unconscious, the unknown, and the invisible."