Sharp shooters hit the mark

Those she took in the late ’80s and early ’90s. Sixteen examples are on display. They’re bigger (20 inches by 24 inches) and, of course, lack the botanical add-ons. These original images are very powerful. They have a parched, imposing grandeur. Norfleet took most of them in the desert West, and they’re like Dr. Doom reimaginings of Ansel Adams. There’s also a display case with documents — correspondence, newspaper clippings, a map — that underscore the absurdity of so much effort being put into the construction and maintenance of what are now post-Cold War dinosaurs.

The title of each triptych is a designation of area: “65 square miles, 1988,’’ for example, or “1350 square miles, 1991.’’ In “339 square miles, 1990’’ a soldier in combat fatigues holds a large shell or canister. The image is situated in such a way that he appears to be watering the flower next to him — or perhaps applying herbicide. In breaking the frame, he seems to have traded soldiering for gardening. This is funny. He’s down on one knee, as if genuflecting (to the canister? the flower? the photographer?). This is even funnier.

The flowers lend a deadpan wit to the triptychs. They seem to mock what’s in the middle. The military hardware becomes so many swords sheathed in Laura Ashley scabbards. The postcards domesticate and shrink the hardware. The postcards also serve to frame the central image, making the triptychs look like a kind of window. This effect is especially striking in “1350 square miles,’’ which shows a dwelling in a simulated town at a test site. It’s like looking at an abandoned farm from a neighbor’s house — part of an exurban development, say, that went under in the current recession.