Alexandre Hogue deliberately intensified the conditions in his depictions of the Southwestern United States in order to generate empathy within his viewers for the desert-like conditions. He called this approach psychoreality. Similar to Stendahl’s Syndrome (a psychosomatic disorder in which viewers overcome by a work of art act out the emotions portrayed in the painting or sculpture), Hogue’s psychoreality was meant to draw attention to the actual conditions in this region. Hogue blamed the region’s problems on man’s inept and thoughtless overcultivation of the land and viewed the plow as the principal agent of the disaster.

Adapted from

Sue Canterbury, Alexandre Hogue: The Erosion Series, Label text, 2014.

Stendhal Syndrome on Wikipedia
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