Pony Express Trail, outside Austin, Nevada 2006, The West by Daniel Cheek

Now here's a photographic lineup with a star-studded marquis: Daniel Cheek, Ben Huff, Shane Lavalette, Laura McPhee, Alec Soth and Zoe Strauss are all included in America Now, a group show that is a " visual commentary on regional identity within the context of the increased globalization of culture." The work spans across the entire continental U.S., including Alaska, and each of the artist's investment in photographing these regional "portraits" has occurred over a sustained amount of time.

From the press release:

Curators Leonie Bradbury and Shana Dumont sought artists who create counterpoints to both the proliferation of cheap, quick images in popular culture and the fashionable photographs that depict the homogeneous nature of American culture. The selected images document cultural and geographic diversity with photographic landscapes, both urban and scenic, and portraiture...Whether the image depicts a fisherman in Alaska, the Teuton mountain range in Idaho, or street vendors in Philadelphia, the works define American cultural geography in a manner that opposes homogeneity of settings, such as the standard highway system, big-box stores and restaurants labeled with recognizable neon signs.

Daniel Cheek is a 2009 First Edition Hot Shot, and was born and raised in the Midwest. He chose to move to California as an adult, and the images in America Now are from his series The West. His images of expansive Western landscapes are imbued with both heart and cheek (sorry, no pun intended...well, maybe a little), and Daniel often trains his ground glass upon things that most tourists to these places try to avoid in their vacation photos: fences, gates and railways; cars and industrial trucks intersecting otherwise pristine vistas and signposts that have long since lost their signage (and thus capacity to inform or instruct).

Both Zoe Strauss and Alec Soth are intrepidly known in photography-loving circles, and both of them have had work that has graced the gallery walls of Jen Bekman Gallery.

Strauss's contributions to the America Now show will be, she writes, a pushpin installation of images from her America series, which fits in perfectly with her grittily accessible annual installations of her I-95 work from the past decade, which can be seen one day a year in an I-95 underpass in Philadelphia (this year will be the last year it's shown, so plan ahead on attending!).

Alec Soth will be exhibiting images from his Sleeping on the Mississippi series. If you've yet to lay eyes on anything from this body of work, the pronouncement from critic John Wood of Soth's "wonderful and terrifying eye" should give you some indication of what you're in for. Soth is nearly as well known for his writerly musings as his terrific eye, and can be found regularly blogging at the idiosyncratic and quite wonderful writer's circle Little Brown Mushroom.

Some of the most thoughtfully curated and surprising shows that I've ever come across have been at private or public college or university galleries. America Now will be on view at the Montserrat College of Art Gallery, 23 Essex Street, Beverly, MA from February 5 - April 10, 2010.

There will also be a conversation with Zoe Strauss, Daniel Cheek and Montserrat Photography Faculty Ron DiRitoonight tonight, Friday, February 5th from 7 - 9 p.m.