By Micah Messenheimer
Reprinted from Elevating Western Art, Denver Art Museum, 2012
Maisel finds an inherent dialectic in Smithson’s work in the conflict between the natural and the rational: “a closed epistemological system which questions perception and knowledge.” Similar dialectics can be detected in Maisel’s work—city vs. desert, beauty vs. horror—yet, in photographing, Maisel offers a decidedly cultural view of the western landscape.