Postcards from the Edge

by John Vettese

exhibit

When Meriwether Lewis and William Clark embarked on their two-year expedition to the Pacific coast and back, there were no county fairs, riverboats or backyard barbeques. The West was still very much the frontier in 1804 when they departed from Missouri on an unsuccessful search for a water route to the left coast. Cal State-Hayward photo professor Greg MacGregor effectively shows how much things have changed in the ensuing 200 years—and how much they haven't—in an exhibit opening at the Philadelphia Museum of Art this week.

Using the team's journal entries as a tip sheet, MacGregor retraced the Corps of Discovery's route piecemeal between 1993 and 1999, and the 60 black and white images in "Lewis And Clark Revisited: A Trail in Modern Day" are culled from these expeditions. The dreary success of Lewis and Clark's other charge—"announcing American sovereignty over the land to the Indian inhabitants"—resonates in one particular photograph: Highway 12 tears through a Nebraska Sioux reservation, with a struck deer slumped dead on the side of the road; passing truck traffic is an indiscernible blur. Less bleak, but undeniable hallmarks of change, are the photographs of people—families swimming in a creek in Idaho's Bitterroot mountains, suited-up fishermen crowded by a large concrete dam. But the most intrigue lies in the solitary landscapes, trees and mountains that still appear rustic and untouched by two centuries of progress. If not for a sign reading "No Overnight Camping, No Fireworks," a shot of a river snaking through the Cascade mountains could have been taken in the days of daguerrotypes.

"Lewis And Clark Revisited: A Trail in Modern Day," runs Dec. 11-Feb. 6; gallery lecture with photographer Greg MacGregor, Fri., Dec. 10, 7 p.m., Levy Gallery, ground floor, free after museum admission, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 26th and The Parkway, 215-684-7860, www.philamuseum.org.