John Charles Van Dyke

"The desert is the ultimate place of illusion. A space of silence, mystery and solitude, it is both a setting and a vehicle for dreams and myths, a place where the horizon seems to evaporate and where all visual landmarks are absent.". "Europe's discovery of the desert in the nineteenth century went hand-in-hand with the invention of photography. This catalogue examines the ways in which photography has captured the desert, and how cinema, relayed by video, shows it. It is organized around a series of images of the desert landscape by such artists as Herge, Wilfred Thesiger, Bill Viola, Balthasar Burkhard, Raymond Depardon, William Eggleston, Lee Friedlander and Pier Paolo Pasolini. Many of these works - executed in the Sahara and in the deserts of Namibia, Libya, Australia and the American Southwest - have been specially commissioned for this volume."--BOOK JACKET.