New Mexicans in Eye to I: Self Portraits

Place and Process

Self-portraits offer latitude to experiment

MANY ARTISTS APPROACH SELF-PORTRAITURE AT SOME POINT IN THEIR CAREERS. Experimenting with the concepts of identity and place, as well as the process of creation. Collecting many self-portraits in different mediums in one exhibition shines a light on how self-perception and self-reflection encompasses the full artist practice.

Eye to I: Self Portraits from 1900 to Today from the National Portrait Gallery, originally scheduled for last summer, was pushed back due to Covid closures and restrictions. One important work had to ship by courier and could not travel; another was committed to another exhibition. When Albuquerque Museum curators learned two works would not be part of the rescheduled exhibition, it gave them the opportunity to add New Mexico-based artists to the exhibition. Museum curators chose three selfportraits from the permanent collection. Although vastly different in style, they share the view of the artists living and working in a specific place—in this case, New Mexico’s desert landscapes.

Mixed media artist Paula Wilson, who lives in Carrizozo, came to New

Paula Wilson, In the Desert: Mooning, 2016, collagraph on muslin from two plates, handprinted collage on muslin and inkjet collage on silk on canvas and wood, Albuquerque Museum, promised gift of Nancy Zastudil and the artist

Gus Foster, On the Road (Pilar Hill), 1982, 542 degree panoramic photograph, type C print, Albuquerque Museum, museum purchase, 1983 General Obligation Bonds, PC1985.11.2

Mexico from New York—purchasing a 5,000-square-foot building near the center of town (pop. 900), where she has the space for the monumental pieces she sometimes creates. Her work ranges from collage to sculpture to painting to installation to printmaking, and many combinations thereof. Her work often depicts the body, parts of the body, and sometimes reflections of identity as seen through technology. She often includes her own image in her works. The Wilson print included in Eye to I is relatively new to the permanent collection, says Josie Lopez, curator of art. “This print really reflects on identity and the body and how specifically Wilson uses her relationship to place, in particular the desert.”

Two New Mexico photographers in the exhibition both experiment with technique and process but in different ways. Will Wilson, no relation to Paula, lives and works in Santa Fe. His photographic project, Critical Indigenous Photographic Exchange uses wet collodion printing—an early photographic technique that requires quick exposure and development. It’s a manual process, requiring a metal plate that is sensitized with salted collodion and silver nitrate, and developed within minutes. The works produced are reminiscent of Edward Curtis’s early 20th century photographs (using the same process) of Native Americans. Wilson’s work, How the West is One shows the Diné photographer juxtaposed against himself —essentially his two identities. The photograph is inherently political as he portrays himself as both cowboy and Indian, underscoring how identity is bound up in history and place.

Taos-based photographer Gus Foster has been making photos with panoramic cameras since the early 1970s. The panorama, however, is almost as old as photography itself, with the first commercial panorama cameras dating from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Foster’s work plays extensively with grand landscapes, wilderness, space, and movement. To make the self-portrait in Eye to I, he used 35mm Globuscope camera, which makes a 360-degree revolution in .8 seconds. This unique process captures panoramas that incorporate motion into still images, pushing the possibilities of photography. On the Road (Pilar Hill), 1982, is a 542-degree panoramic photograph that incorporates Foster’s image behind the wheel of a car with the landscape undulating through the image.

National Portrait Gallery works featured in Eye to I are self-portraits by prominent figures in the history of portraiture, including Robert Arneson, Alexander Calder, Jasper Johns, Allan Kaprow, Deborah Kass, Elaine de Kooning, Jacob Lawrence, Louise Nevelson, Irving Penn, Robert Rauschenberg, Fritz Scholder, Roger Shimomura, Alfaro Siqueiros, Edward Steichen, and many more.

ON VIEW

EYE TO I: SELF PORTRAITS FROM 1900 TO TODAY

Through September 12

Will Wilson, How the West is One, 2012, digital inkjet print on paper, Albuquerque Museum, museum purchase, PC2015.24.1.A-B