Skip to main content
Blue Right Angle, Albright Knox Gallery, Buffalo, New York (from the series Altered Landscapes)
Blue Right Angle, Albright Knox Gallery, Buffalo, New York (from the series Altered Landscapes)
Blue Right Angle, Albright Knox Gallery, Buffalo, New York (from the series Altered Landscapes)

Blue Right Angle, Albright Knox Gallery, Buffalo, New York (from the series Altered Landscapes)

Artist (American, 1939 - 2020)
Date1975 printed 1977
MediumChromognic print
DimensionsImage: 7 3/4 × 10 1/8 in. (19.7 × 25.7 cm)
Support: 8 1/2 × 11 1/8 in. (21.6 × 28.3 cm)
Mat: 14 × 17 in. (35.6 × 43.2 cm)
ClassificationsPhotograph
Credit LineGift of Bobbie Foshay, 2017
Object number2017.24.26
DescriptionClose view of about five light marble (?) architectural columns on the exterior portal of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery with the addition of a blue, hyphenated line in the shape of a right angle in center foreground.
eMuseum Notes
Pfahl’s ongoing interest in the human imprint on the landscape takes a more intellectual turn in his series “Altered Landscapes” from the mid-1970s. Each of these images features an intervention by the artist that is incorporated into the ordinary scenery. By photographing his alterations to the landscape in a straightforward manner, Pfahl plays with our perceptions and intentionally disorients his audience.

See 1986.119.1 for another image from this series.

 

See John Pfahl, “Altered Landscapes” (Friends of Photography, 1981).

 

The photograph was made in Buffalo, New York.

 

Known as an educator as well as a photographer, Pfahl spent much of his adult life in upstate New York where he taught at the Rochester Institute of Technology, the Visual Studies Workshop, and the University of Buffalo. He has also taught at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.  In 2009, Pfahl received the Honored Educator of the Year award from the Society for Photographic Education.

On View
Not on view