File:Michael Light Lake Lahontan 2018.jpg

Photograph by Michael Light, Black Rock City in June, Looking Southeast, Pleistocene Lake Lahontan, Gerlach, Nevada (2018). The image illustrates a key later body of work in Michael Light's career beginning in the later 2010s, when he produced the photographic series, "Lake Lahontan" (part of an ongoing "Some Dry Space: An Inhabited West" project), as prints, limited-edition, handmade books, and a published book. These low-flying aerial photographs examine the human traces left by industrialization, urbanization and, in this case, events such as Burning Man, which etched spiraling swirls (vehicle tracks, roads and trails) and city grids in the Nevada and California desert's Lake Lahontan. These photographs and books were publicly exhibited in prominent venues, discussed in major art journals and daily press publications, and acquired by museums.

Artist Michael Light. Copyright held by the artist.

Michael Light

Entire artwork

Yes

The image serves an informational and educational purpose as the primary means of illustrating a key later body of work in Michael Light's career in the later 2010s: his aerial photographic series, "Lake Lahontan" (part of the larger "Some Dry Space: An Inhabited West" project), which he presented in prints, large limited-edition, handmade books, and a published book. These photographs examine the human traces left by industrialization, urbanization and movement in largely barren American western locales. Reviews have likened them to historical scars left by North American wagon trails and Apollo mission rover paths and, formally, to artworks by Brice Marden and Cy Twombly, or graffiti. Because the article is about an artist and his work, the omission of the image would significantly limit a reader's understanding and ability to understand this late stage and body of work, which brought Light continuing recognition through exhibitions in major venues and coverage by major critics and publications. Light's work of this type and this series is discussed in the article and by critics cited in the article.

There is no free equivalent of this or any other of this series by Michael Light, so the image cannot be replaced by a free image.

The image will not affect the value of the original work or limit the copyright holder's rights or ability to distribute the original due to its low resolution and the general workings of the art market, which values the actual work of art. Because of the low resolution, illegal copies could not be made.