In our fourth year of drought, a photographic exhibition of the Salton Sea could not be more apropos. Shrinking in size and choking on salt, the agricultural sump is, among other things, threatening migratory birds that require it as a stopover on the Pacific Flyway. Photographer Virginia Beahan trains her lens on this disastrous wasteland in Virginia Beahan: Elegy for an Ancient Sea, opening this month at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego–La Jolla (pictured: Pink Chair, Salton Sea Beach, 2013). Beahan, a lecturer at Dartmouth College, specializes in the stark and profound; her images of Cuba were featured at the Getty in L.A. and, currently, in the Joseph Bellows Gallery in La Jolla.
July 25 to September 6; 700 Prospect Street, La Jolla
Photo by Virginia Beahan