Shifting Views & Changing Places

Following the recent conclusion of the retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Texas Tech University, the University of Oklahoma Press published in September a comprehensive monograph, Shifting Views & Changing Places, on Rick Dingus and his artwork. The Artist Printmaker/Photographer Research Collection (AP/RC) at the Museum of Texas Tech University has the largest singular collection of photographic art works by Dingus and most of the images in this new publication are from that collection.

This publication explores in depth this artist's persistent and evocative vision of landscapes, with a strong emphasis on the lands and cultures of the American West. Since the 1970s Dingus has photographed remote wilderness, rural settings, vernacular traces, urban environments, and ancient pathways. His images encourage thoughtfulness about what is observed and his observations expose a lifelong exploration of the intersections of time, place, culture, and environment.

In this new publication, Dingus discusses his creative process in practical and philosophical terms through brief opening passages and an in-depth interview with Peter S. Briggs, Curator of Art at the Museum of Texas Tech University. An introductory essay by Toby Jurovics considers Dingus's oeuvre within the evolution of landscape photography from the nineteenth century to the present day—offering a view of the photographer's art as "resilient enough to contain both empirical and metaphorical truth; the descriptive and the personal; the past and the present." An essay by Shelley Armitage offers a more personal reflection on the experience of viewing the photographs. And art critic Lucy R. Lippard provides a chronology and sustained interpretation of Dingus's work, with its emphasis on transformation and on "translating information across visual borders."

Shifting Views & Changing Places is available from the University of Oklahoma Press.