Exploring the dark topography of the Northern European landscape, Todd Hido's exhibition, Bright Black World at Casemore Kirkeby highlights the San Francisco-based photographer's first significant foray extensively photographing territory outside of the United States, chronicling a decidedly new psychological geography and environmental concern. For nearly three decades, Hido has crafted narratives through loose and mysterious suburban scenes, desolate landscapes, and stylized portraits.
He has traversed North America capturing places that feel at once familiar and unknown; welcoming and unsettling. Nordic mythology, specifically the idea of Fimbulwinter, which literally translates to ‘the great winter’, influenced many of Hido’s new images, which provide form for this notion of an apocalyptic, never-ending tundra. The narrative shift from the personal to the political-environmental is palpable in Hido’s new work. Iceland, formed by lava fields, mountains, and glaciers, transports viewers to a seemingly other world -- a natural world that is on the precipice of ruin. This world is imbued with hidden memories and mythologies that serve as cautionary tales – volcanic eruptions, clairvoyant predictions – Old Norse lore warning of future natural disasters. Images of lifeless roads approaching horizons evoke a sense of abandonment where once (perhaps) thriving communities are reduced to skidding tire tracks in drifting snow over a black sand beach, and formerly lush forests are dwindled to twisted embers.
Todd Hido's newest monograph of the same title is available via Nazraeli Press.
