Cuesta College students and the Central Coast community get a rare chance to take a gander at the images from one of photography’s most influential artists. The Harold J. Miossi Art Gallery presents John Divola: The Landscape and the Things in the Way through Dec. 11.
For more than 50 years, Divola has worked between the abstract and the specific, using his camera to question place, impermanence, and the act of taking photos. The Cuesta show brings together works Divola made from 2015 to 2025 in abandoned housing at a former Air Force base in Victorville. Built between 1965 and 1972, the roughly 600 housing units were abandoned in 1992 and left to deteriorate.
Gallery Coordinator Timothy Stark said that few artists commit to a place the way that Divola committed to George Air Force Base.
“He returned for 10 years, observing every trace of the people who came before him, and then added his own marks to the record,” said Timothy Stark, Harold J. Miossi Art Gallery coordinator. “His photographs show students what sustained attention looks like and how an image can document the ‘gesture’ of space.”
Born in Los Angeles in 1949, Divola is a distinguished professor emeritus at UC Riverside. His work has been featured in more than 100 solo exhibitions. Find a recording of his artist talk on Cuesta College’s YouTube channel.
The Harold J. Miossi Gallery is in Room 7170 at Cuesta College on Highway 1, in the courtyard of the Cultural and Performing Arts Center. Visit Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. or by appointment. Admission is free. ∆
This article appears in Nov 12-19, 2026.
