Vasari Diary: Stuart Klipper, Toni Dove, and ‘The William H. Gass Reader’

 

In another generation I could be sitting around looking at the Talmud and studying the subject from many different angles,” explained photographer Stuart Klipper. Instead, the Bronx-born, and since 1970, Minneapolis-based photographer has taken on an equally fastidious but far broader purview: he has focused his lens on the likes of Antarctica, Greenland, Iceland, Svalbard, Alaska, and Lapland (the area irradiated by the Chernobyl disaster), as well as the deserts of Israel and Sinai, the tropical rain forests of Costa Rica, Northern Australia, Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan . . . just for starters. He has also photographed the Anasazi ruins of the Southwest. The vastness of the perspectives and the monochromatic quality of his settings allow ample space and time for creative imaginings.

sari Diary: Stuart Klipper, Toni Dove, and ‘The William H. Gass Reader’

a Few States,” and at old disused towns populated by artifacts, like the Litchfield, Minnesota, drive-in.

Stuart Klipper, Road to Bonneville Raceway, Great Salt Flats, Utah, 1990.

COURTESY THE ARTIST

Klipper gets ideas for subjects in many ways. Some are incidental; others come from friends who suggest sites. “I get calls from certain parts of the country where they’re relevant. And, I’m not always alone. My partner, Kathleen Richert, who is a plein-air watercolorist—will point out things that she knows I’m interested in as we’re driving along,” Klipper added.
“People have spoken of the effect of some of my photos this way,” Klipper said. “It’s like the sense that ‘I’m not from this place, but if I were from it, this is how I’d describe it.’ ”