This Land

David Opdyke's massive collage This Land as detailed in this book by award-winning author Lawrence Weschler presents a trenchant satire of climate change and the American Dream.

This Land is a large-scale (16 x 10') collage of treated vintage American postcards by American artist David Opdyke. What at first looks like a gridwork of colorful tiles portraying a panoramic bird's eye view of an alpine valley reveal upon closer inspection that it is composed of vintage postcards from the early twentieth century.

Comprising more than 500 postcards, each one portraying a distinct slice of idealized Americana (town squares, mountain highways, recently completed dams, main streets and county seats, lakes and rivers)--it becomes clear that Opdyke has layered diminutively painted interventions of his own. In this refashioning, forests are aflame, tornados ravage scenes from one card into the next, a steamboat lolling up the Mississippi is swallowed up whole by some sort of invasive new species, frogs fall from the sky. The human response looks like a cacophony of cults and cons, panic and denial. Biplanes trail banners urging "Repent Now!," others insist "Legislative Action Would Be Premature," while still others beg, "Build the Sea Wall!"

The book This Land allows readers a close viewing that allows them to focus on the amusing and disturbing satirical details that Opdyke details, enlivened by Lawrence Weschler's lively style of artist profile, critical interpretation, and humorous riffing. A deep exploration of this intricate artwork, This Land is a rich document whose relevance and reach will unfortunately only grow.

About the Authors

David Opdyke is an artist known for his trenchant political send-ups of American culture. Opdyke's political awakening in the early 2000s led to a body of work that confronted the horror of 9/11 and America's subsequent wars. His hyperrealistic topographical models of American suburbs comment on mall culture and suburban sprawl, while his sculptures of ruined monuments mock imperialistic hubris. His work is held in the collections of the Museum of Arts and Design, MoMA, and the Brooklyn Museum.

Lawrence Weschler is author of more twenty books of narrative nonfiction, most recently And How Are You, Dr. Sacks? (FSG, 2019). He is a former staff writer at the New Yorker, and served as director of the New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU (2001-14), and artistic director of the Chicago Humanities Festival (2006-11). His books include Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees; Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder (a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize); Everything That Rises- A Book of Convergences (winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism, 2007); and A Miracle, A Universe- Settling Accounts with Torturers.