American, b. 1941
Seal research transponder, McMurdo Sound sea ice, Razorback Islands, near Ross Island, Antarctic, 1999
C-print
By my lights, all that can be experienced in Antarctica can be infused with an innate, primal, and subsuming metaphysical experience—to its very core it bears a charge of the sacral.
—Stuart Klipper
Stuart Klipper visited Antarctica five times with the National Science Foundation’s Antarctic Artists and Writers Program. Continuing the legacy of Frank Hurley and Herbert Ponting, the artist points his 110-degree lens at the landscape as well as the scientific experiments and infrastructure of the United States research base.
In this photograph, Klipper documents a frozen landscape anchored by a temporary radio installation that tracks tagged seals. An image of extreme loneliness and isolation, this photograph was included in his book The Antarctic: From the Circle to the Pole (2008).