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Connie Samaras, Spaceport America: Terminal (facing street entrance), 2011 (printed 2012), pigm…
Spaceport America: Terminal (facing street entrance)
Connie Samaras, Spaceport America: Terminal (facing street entrance), 2011 (printed 2012), pigm…
Connie Samaras, Spaceport America: Terminal (facing street entrance), 2011 (printed 2012), pigment print, 32 1/8 x 40 in. Collection of the New Mexico Museum of Art. Jane Reese Williams Collection, Museum purchase with funds from the New Mexico Council on Photography, 2012 (2012.8) © Connie Samaras

Spaceport America: Terminal (facing street entrance)

Artist (American, born 1950)
Date2011 (printed 2012)
Mediumpigment print
DimensionsImage: 32 1/8 x 40 in. (81.6 x 101.6 cm)
Support: 38 3/8 x 42 7/16 in. (97.5 x 107.8 cm)
Frame: 34 1/4 × 42 3/16 × 2 3/16 in. (87 × 107.2 × 5.6 cm)
ClassificationsPhotograph
Credit LineJane Reese Williams Collection, Museum purchase with funds from the New Mexico Council on Photography, 2012
Object number2012.8
DescriptionDark runway recedes into distance at center of composition, surrounded by desert. Dual-lobed building situated at horizon line, mountains in distance across breadth of picture.
Text Entries
This photograph was taken on a series of expeditions to southern New Mexico during the construction of Spaceport America, the world’s first commercial center for space travel. Like the artist’s previous work in Las Vegas, the Antarctic, and Dubai, this is an image of a landscape in transition. The streamlined architecture of the Spaceport’s main terminal recalls the optimistic futurism of the 1950s but the man-made structure is nonetheless dwarfed by the vast sky and ancient soil of its desert site. Samaras’ work reminds us that the future exists in the imagination and the present must always contend with the past.
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