Rose by Jackie Weisberg in "Faces of a Village". Slideshow

NEW YORK, NY March 25, 2009 —Two new photography exhibitions demonstrate how places, as much as people, can provide artistic inspiration. This Sunday, MoMA unveils a new exhibition called, "Into The Sunset". It's a survey of 150 photographs of the American West -- from 1850 through 2008.

Curator Eva Respini hopes the show demonstrates why the West was a muse for generations of photographers:

RESPINI: The West has always symbolized America as a whole, it was sort of where the promises of the country would unfold.

Respini says there are many familiar faces in this exhibit.

RESPINI: Frontiersmen, goldminers, some of the most notorious gangs of the West.

And a photo exhibition in Queens looks at people and places a little closer to home -- it's a collection of images of Long Island City.

The organizers call the neighborhood a universe that contains many tiny galaxies -- the local churches, the dog run, the playground, and long-time neighborhood residents.

Visit our culture pages to see images from the MoMA exhibition, and from a Long Island City show called "Faces of a Village".