Flight Patterns

By Lee Weng Choy, Francis Pound and Cornelia Butler Published on the occasion of the exhibition Flight Patterns, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, November 12, 2000–February 11, 2001. Flight Patterns highlights contemporary artists primarily working in the Pacific Basin--Southern California, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia--whose work addresses the specific topographical conditions and experience of living in this geographically and geopolitically dynamic region. As its conceptual foundation, Flight Patterns rethinks topographical practices of photography since the 1970s, looking at current manifestations of the topographical impulse in landscape-oriented work. The exhibition and its accompanying catalogue include new projects, recent work from the 1990s, and historically significant works of photography, film, video, and painting by 23 artists, including Doug Aitken, Rodney Graham, Anthony Hernandez, Tracey Moffatt, Paul Outerbridge, Allan Sekula, Miles Coolidge, Simon L