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reviews, press:
Jim Klukkert has spent more than four years photographing the banks of the Pojoaque River in the farming community of El Rancho, 20 miles northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Starting March 10, Klukkert’s new portfolio, Riparian Work will have its premier exhibition at August Gallery in Santa Fe. This is also his first solo show in 13 years.
Klukkert’s choice of subject was almost an accident. “I have always been interested in the landscape, though when I began working in color, I focused on people and the street. I’m a shooter—I almost always have a camera with me. I started walking here, and these images came up. It also helps that the river flows, more or less, about 100 yards from my front door.”
Riparian areas are found on riverbanks and other water courses, and in the high desert, where the densest vegetation is found. But don’t expect quiet nature studies at the August Gallery. “The plants out here vibrate with life, so I brought to my shooting the same approach I use on the street or film set: ‘Get Close, Get Involved.’ The big difference between my previous practice and Riparian Work is that my street is a river, and its pedestrians are plants.”
Klukkert has been applying his “Get Close, Get Involved” strategy since beginning his photo career in the 1970’s as an underground press journalist. He covered the IRA in Belfast, Black Power politics, Native American land struggles, and other controversial issues from inside the New Left of those turbulent days. “If I was embedded, it was definitely on the side of the underdog.”
A two year stint at Apeiron Workshops in Millerton, New York helped Jim refine his direction. “I would not say I left political advocacy work. I became aware of the tremendous power of metaphor and meaning in my own imagery. I began to document my own surroundings, the people, and things most immediate and dear to me. So of course, my work is about myself. I believe I tap into the universal, and advocate for the beauty that is common.”
When asked how this shows in his photographs, Klukkert says it is perhaps less obvious in Riparian Work. “In my earlier work, including the film work from the Duke City Shoot Out show (at Albuquerque’s Kimo Theater last summer), there are a lot of dynamics: of caring among people, or folks suffering life’s idiosyncrasies. I see a lot of those same relationships in what I photograph along the river.”
Klukkert’s choice of subject was almost an accident. “I have always been interested in the landscape, though when I began working in color, I focused on people and the street. I’m a shooter—I almost always have a camera with me. I started walking here, and these images came up. It also helps that the river flows, more or less, about 100 yards from my front door.”
Riparian areas are found on riverbanks and other water courses, and in the high desert, where the densest vegetation is found. But don’t expect quiet nature studies at the August Gallery. “The plants out here vibrate with life, so I brought to my shooting the same approach I use on the street or film set: ‘Get Close, Get Involved.’ The big difference between my previous practice and Riparian Work is that my street is a river, and its pedestrians are plants.”
Klukkert has been applying his “Get Close, Get Involved” strategy since beginning his photo career in the 1970’s as an underground press journalist. He covered the IRA in Belfast, Black Power politics, Native American land struggles, and other controversial issues from inside the New Left of those turbulent days. “If I was embedded, it was definitely on the side of the underdog.”
A two year stint at Apeiron Workshops in Millerton, New York helped Jim refine his direction. “I would not say I left political advocacy work. I became aware of the tremendous power of metaphor and meaning in my own imagery. I began to document my own surroundings, the people, and things most immediate and dear to me. So of course, my work is about myself. I believe I tap into the universal, and advocate for the beauty that is common.”
When asked how this shows in his photographs, Klukkert says it is perhaps less obvious in Riparian Work. “In my earlier work, including the film work from the Duke City Shoot Out show (at Albuquerque’s Kimo Theater last summer), there are a lot of dynamics: of caring among people, or folks suffering life’s idiosyncrasies. I see a lot of those same relationships in what I photograph along the river.”
