Image: Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca
The Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University is presenting ‘Blazing Light: Photographs by Mimi Plumb’, the first museum exhibition devoted to the American photographer’s work. On view from June 13 through September 27, 2026, the exhibition brings together three major bodies of photographs made over five decades in and around California, examining the altered landscape and the pressures shaping contemporary American life.
Based in Berkeley, Plumb has photographed California and the Western United States since the 1970s. Her practice focuses on the human-altered landscape and the effects of climate change, unbridled capitalism and looming military conflict. The Johnson Museum describes her approach as raw and psychologically charged, using California’s intense sunlight and gritty black-and-white photography to heighten both tension and imaginative possibility.
The exhibition is structured around ‘The White Sky’ (1972–78), ‘Landfall’ and ‘The Golden City’ (1984–2020), and ‘The Reservoir’ (2021–25). Together, the series trace a movement from the uncertainty surrounding rapid land development and Cold War instability to landscapes marked by social disorder and possible environmental catastrophe. ‘The White Sky’, begun when Plumb was a teenager, records what the museum characterizes as the final glimmers of innocence and optimism after the Second World War. The later series present increasingly unsettled visions: ‘Landfall’ and ‘The Golden City’ suggest a society descending into chaos, while ‘The Reservoir’ depicts a stark world seemingly left in the aftermath of an undefined apocalypse.
Plumb’s photographs draw attention to the relationship between place, infrastructure and human behavior. The museum’s account of the work connects her early awareness of global warming and geopolitical instability with her continuing attention to evidence of those forces in the land, the built environment and the ways people relate to one another. The images encompass the grand but fragile beauty of the American West as well as the peculiarities of urban life.
An American artist born in 1953, Plumb earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in photography from the San Francisco Art Institute. She has taught at the Art Institute of Chicago, Stanford University and San Jose State University. Her published monographs include ‘Landfall’ (2018), ‘The White Sky’ (2020), ‘The Golden City’ (2021), ‘Megalith-Still’ (2023), ‘Lookout on Highway 74’ (2025) and ‘The Reservoir’ (2025). Her work is held by institutions including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Yale University Art Gallery and the High Museum of Art.
‘Blazing Light’ was organized by the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. At the Johnson Museum, the presentation was organized by Molly Kalkstein, the Gary and Ellen Davis Curator of Photography, with support from the Adelson Family Exhibition Fund and the Jan Abrams Exhibition Endowment. The exhibition is installed in the Gold, Schaenen and Class of 1953 Galleries on Floor 2L, where admission is free. Plumb will discuss her work at the museum on September 10 at 5:15 p.m., followed by a public reception; the exhibition remains on view through September 27.
