In a Lonely Place

As photography comes to be classified as fine art in line with painting and sculpture, it is proving no less vulnerable to conceptual theorizing. One can certainly experience Alex Slade’s work as “mapping and topographical strategies,” to quote from material on the photographer and sculptor’s current show at the Santa Monica Museum of Art. On the other hand, you could also just savor them as hard-to-forget shooting by one of a recent crop of latter-day Adamses and Cartier-Bressons with unexpected perspectives on what a landscape looks like these days. Slade’s images have appeared in group shows in Los Angeles as well as the 2003 Prague Biennale and other venues; this solo exhibition presents the artist’s take on lonely intersections, parking lots, roadside detritus and other tableaux in locales that include Los Angeles and Barstow.

“Alex Slade: Vacant Lot,” Santa Monica Museum of Art, Bergamot Station G1, 2525 Michigan Ave., Santa Monica; (310) 586-6488; through Aug. 14.