Mark Ruwedel, Devils Garden, Craters of the Moon National Monument, Idaho, 1996 COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND GALLERY LUISOTTI, SANTA MONICA

Mark Ruwedel, Devils Garden, Craters of the Moon National Monument, Idaho, 1996
COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND GALLERY LUISOTTI, SANTA MONICA

Pictures at an Exhibition presents images of one notable show every weekday.

Today’s show: ‘Mark Ruwedel: Pictures of Hell’ is now on view at Gallery Luisotti in Santa Monica, CA until May 30, 2015. Ruwedel’s ambitious exhibition aims to document the sites in the American West that have been named after hell or the devil by Euro-American explorers in the 19th Century. As George Stewart elaborated in his Names on the Land (1945), “However profane he might be in speech, the American did not apply the name of God to places. When he wished to give any idea of the supernatural, he resorted to the Devil.”