Mark Armijo McKnight’s bodily landscapes capture the tactile serenity of the American West

The land and the body inhabit Mark Armijo McKnight’s black and white photographs with a mystic alchemy. Visually, the two are intertwined: a torso, for example, is impossible to distinguish from a dune, or the clouds, from the cigarette smoke puffed out of a mouth. The New York-based artist, however, is strongly invested in the emotional chemistry of two forms of tactility. This meditative harmony of the earth and the skin meanders throughout McKnight’s new exhibition, Decreation, at The Whitney Museum where nudes seep into the American west panorama. 'The landscape is a site of catharsis and meaning-making, and the earth is the protagonist,' McKnight tells Wallpaper* about his pictures. He believes in the 'psychological dimension,' of an either barren or lush landscape, 'which wouldn’t otherwise be in an image.'

Somnia (2023) frames three nude men caressing each other amidst a rocky scenery—their limbs tightly envelop their bulky bodies, not unlike the rocks peppered around them with a hefty and serene bulbousness. Their virile intimacy sinks into the fallow land, with soft skin rubbing into the rough flora. The Black Place (2024) initially tricks the eye with the suggestion of a human likeness; however, the image exclusively captures a piece of rutted earth, uninhibited yet soulful. 'Composed or even a bit claustrophobic' quality of his images stems from a desire to 'make the viewer feel inside a place,' the artist explains which emphasises the 'ethos of a landscape out of a deep respect for the natural world.'

Besides the familiar territory of photography, McKnight dips his toe into two new mediums for his first institutional outing in New York. An eleven-minute long black and white film, titled Without a Song (2024), is a moody contemplation on time and light under the sharp desert light. In it, a suite of metronomes are perched across a wash of rocks, while their rapid ticking permeates into the gallery with the puncturing immediacy of bullet sounds.

The show’s five photographs are also joined by two blocky limestone sculptures that moonlight as seats for the film’s audience. Together titled Duet (2024), the geometric forms with abrupt carvings each weigh around 5,600 pounds. They hold a “monolithic feel,” according to the artist who based the sculptures on ancient scratch dials. Their original purpose of informing people about when to pray before the invention of the clock resonates with temporality inside the museum’s contemporary confines.

'They were called scratch dials because the dials were carved so crudely into the surface of a stone,' adds McKnight. Similar to the film’s lingering hold on time, the sculptures solidify fluidity which is both linear and circular, akin to time’s passing. 'The desperation to mark time is both beautiful and relatable,' muses McKnight who finds a similar urge in his lens. 'What is photography but a confluence of time, light, and shadow?' he asks. The duo of sculptures in this sense reflects his 'distillation of elemental concerns about taking pictures.'

The black and white palette allows the artist to paint his images with swatches of dimness and rely on the poetic intrigue of mystery. 'I can bury things in shadows and have more control than I would in colour,' says McKnight. He thrives in making 'more subjective decisions,' unburdened by creating realistic or believable pictures. 'The affective potential of black and white images allow for a tonal mode and rhythmic coherence to create a metaphor,' he adds.

Mark Armijo McKnight: Decreation is open at the Whitney Museum of American Art through January 5, 2025

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