News and Events

Barrick Museum Exhibit Explores Mystery of Decay through Photography

November 28, 2011


Location: Marjorie Barrick Museum

Lost Places of the Mojave Desert

A new exhibition coming to the UNLV Barrick Museum brings Las Vegas photographer Julian Kilker’s innovative technique to bear on the decay and ruin that fill the human landscape.

Lost Places of the Mojave: Photographs by Julian Kilker will be on display from Dec. 2 to Jan. 22, 2012. An opening reception will be held on Dec. 2 from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Refreshments will be served.

In Lost Places of the Mojave, Kilker uses night photography and light painting to juxtapose decaying buildings with streaking lights from passing vehicles to suggest such cycles, as well as wide angle perspectives to emphasize the open spaces and breached interior-exterior boundaries of the deteriorating structures.

Kilker feels that decay evokes mystery, poignancy, and mortality, but it also provides clues about how an artifact or place was created and cared for. In most cases, there is a history, often instructive, behind the questions raised by abandoned and decaying environments.

Kilker is an associate professor of emerging studies at UNLV’s Hank Greenspun School of Journalism & Media Studies.

For more information on Lost Places of the Mojave or other upcoming UNLV Barrick Museum events and exhibitions contact the Museum at (702) 895-3381, by email at barrick.museum@unlv.edu, or on the web.


 



News Archive