"Desert Work: Walter Cotten and Steve De Pinto" (25 May - 30 June 1990)

"Their work does not adopt a specific political stance; instead it exploits to great effect the unease generated by the unexpected and inexplicable content, conveying a sense of trespass and forcing viewers to confront their own notions of the nature of such technology.

The work is also, in a way, a performance: supporting documentary photographs and maps emphasize the process of locating, exploring and transforming these sites. In the large works themselves, there is a strong emphasis on sculptural form and space. Throughout, the extraordinary environment plays a major role. Beyond the installations, the wide expanse of bare desert extending to the horizon suggests both literally and metaphorically a broader scope for their concerns.

Steve De Pinto studied printmaking at San Diego State University, and became Instructor at Orange Coast College, Costa Mesa, California. Walter Cotten studied cultural anthropology and, later, printmaking at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and became Professor of Art at San Diego State University. Both artists exhibited regularly in California and elsewhere. Their previous collaborative venture, A Dry Lake Project, was shown at the Roark Gallery in Los Angeles in 1986, and the work on show here, Desert Work, is to be exhibited later in 1990 at the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art. " - The Photographers Gallery, London, UK