NY400 Week: Nature as Artifice - New Dutch Landscape in Photography and Video Art September 9, 2009

Over the past four centuries, Dutch artists have created countless memorable images of virgin nature and the countryside. In the modern Netherlands, however, humans control the environment through technology.This exhibition showcases the work of 18 Dutch and foreign photographers and artists who have interpreted this changing relationship between man and nature. Nature as Artifice at Aperture Gallery highlights the Netherlands' current status as the most artificial country in the world.
Globalization has changed the Netherlands. Agriculture has made way for suburbanization, industrialization and infrastructure for transportation and recreation. The agrarian activity that still exists is de-romanticized by extreme scaling-up. Biotechnology in breeding plants, computerized greenhouses and advanced engineering methods to manipulate and create new land – a necessity in the Dutch struggle against water and the now rising sea level – have extended human control from landscape to nature as a whole.

Official Website: http://www.ny400.org/events/ny400-week-nature-as-artifice-new-dutch-landscape-in-photography-and-video-art