The Imprint, 2010. © Niloufar Banisadr — *The Imprint*, 2010. © Niloufar Banisadr

The Seattle Art Fair returns this year with a strong overall program and consistently compelling photography-based work.

Yes, I know – hyperbolic headlines are a bit rich. I wrote this one a bit hesitantly after missing last weekend's Seattle Emerging Art Fair – a one-night popup exhibition at Canvas Space which I, unfortunately, learned about too late. So much for being on the pulse of art in a tech-drenched city. Digress and ramble on...

I'm also quietly mourning the (hopefully temporary) departure of Seattle's famously "more punk" biennial on-ramp "Out of Sight." There are rumors circulating about what caused this, but the general talk and suspicions center around gentrification and concrete-condo-jungle real estate boom making art space less affordable. Let's hope it returns next year.

Digressing again.

As sad as Out of Sight's departure is, The Seattle Art Fair - open through Sunday, August 5th at 6pm, continues to improve and impress, especially around photography. Now in its fourth year, it's become an annual tradition for Humble to highlight some of the fair's photo-related standouts, so here goes. If you're in the area, be sure to check these out and be ready to liquidate your bank account on work ranging from hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars.

Without further ado....

Psychscape 18 (Banner Ridge, CA), 2017 © Terri Loewenthal

Terri Loewenthal’s Psychscapes, on view at CULT | Aimee Friberg Exhibitions, San Francisco through April 21, considers the California landscape as a canvas for technological and psychological interpretation.

Terri Loewenthal’s colorful visions are grounded in – and radically riff on – the photographic expeditions of post-Civil War US Geological surveys, which had many now-controversial goals. On one level, newly gathered information might help industrialists better understand – and subdue – the vast terrain between the growing nation’s eastern and western shores and properly feed an increasingly hungry consumer economy. On another, to help “secure” the land and fully realize Manifest Destiny’s mandate, governmental agencies used survey information to envision future European-settler civilizations. Photography was a tool to meet both of these ends and visually justify their explorations and conquests.

Exhibition review by Roula Seikaly

Photography Highlights from Seattle's Last Art Fair Left Standing

Psychedelic Pictures Reconsider a History of American Landscape Photography