Review: It takes real drive to see 3-part John Divola retrospective

Does the mere presence of a camera at an ordinary place or extraordinary event inevitably damage the experience of it, as vandalism does? “John Divola: As Far as I Could Get,” the much-anticipated retrospective exhibition of his photographs, opens with 30 prints from his initial “Vandalism” series; they set the tone for the extraordinary body of work he would produce over the next four decades. CHEAT SHEET: Fall arts preview 2013 That quietly emotional undercurrent is one element that distinguishes Divola’s art from contemporaneous work of such photographers as Lewis Baltz and Joe Deal, who also charted the human transformation of the modern industrial and suburban landscape. But looking at “Vandalism” and the LAX photographs at Santa Barbara, it’s frustrating to realize that the “Zuma” pictures are all the way in Claremont. At LACMA, images from the exhibition’s title series, “As Far as I Could Get,” show the artist disappearing into the landscape, running away from a camera whose automatic timer is set to click the shutter after 10 quick seconds.