Image
 Will Wilson (b. 1969)
Exhibitions

In Conversation: Will Wilson

Organized by Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

October 11 - January 8, 2025


“[Edward] Curtis created the most comprehensive archive of Indigenous North Americans, and now contemporary artists want to take that authority back and create archives of who they believe themselves to be.”

—Will Wilson

Diné photographer Will Wilson’s ongoing Critical Indigenous Photographic Exchange (CIPX) project is dedicated to creating a contemporary vision of Native North America. At the turn of the twentieth century, American photographer Edward Sheriff Curtis (1868–1952) embarked on a journey to produce a series of portfolios that documented Native Americans and their ways of life. The results, published as The North American Indian (1907–1930), were decidedly romantic while being received as reality. Curtis reduced his subjects to archetypes rather than allowing for personal agency. He would often provide props and worked diligently to ensure no examples of modern life appeared in his constructed scenes. For Wilson, CIPX is a way to create new conversations that decenter the work of Curtis and instead emphasizes exchange over problematic documentation.

For CIPX, Wilson employs a wet-plate collodion photographic technique, based on the nineteenth-century method that involves exposing and then developing a plate that has been coated in light-sensitive chemicals. Wilson pushes the CIPX project into the contemporary with the inclusion of “Talking Tintypes,” which use AR technology to bring photographs to life. Through his work, Wilson explores identity, the photographic medium as both art and science, and community. He collaborates with his sitters, who determine the pose, clothing, props, and how they are presented. As a gesture of reciprocity, Wilson gives the sitters the original photograph, while retaining the right to print and use scans for artistic purposes.

In Conversation: Will Wilson was curated by Mindy Besaw, Curator of American Art/Director of Fellowships & Research from Crystal Bridges, and Ashley Holland, Associate Curator from Art Bridges
In Conversation: Will Wilson is organized by
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art 
Support provided by Art Bridges

ArtBridges

 

Image, detail: Will Wilson (b. 1969), Cory Van Zytveld, Director of Events, Four Mile Historic Park, US Citizen, 2013, printed 2018, archival pigment print from wet plate collodion scan, 22 x 17 in. Art Bridges. Photographed by Brad Flowers.

Also on view

Portraits of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, Past & Present

At the Sun Valley Museum of Art, an auxiliary exhibition explores portraits of members of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes made at the turn of the 20th century and today. In 1895, the Danish American photographer Benedicte Wrensted arrived in Pocatello, Idaho, where she established a photography studio. Among her clients were members of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes whose portraits Wrensted took until leaving Idaho in 1912. Unlike Edward Curtis, Wrensted invited her sitters to present themselves as they wished, and members of the Tribes appear in her photographs in both traditional regalia and settler dress. The exhibition also includes photographs made by photographers for the Sho-Ban News—Lori Edmo, Roselynn Yazzie, and Jeremy Shay—at events including the annual Shoshone-Bannock Festival.


 

Associated Exhibition Events

Lectures & Talks
Image
Will Wilson

ART CLUB: Portraiture in the 21st Century

5:30 PM

The Museum
Exhibition Tours & Events, Lectures & Talks
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In Conversation: Will Wilson

SVMoA MEMBERS: Exhibition Preview & Tour

In Conversation: Will Wilson

5:00 PM

The Museum
Exhibition Tours & Events
Image
Will Wilson (b. 1969), Will Wilson, Citizen of the Navajo Nation, Trans-customary Diné Artist, 2013

EXHIBITION OPENING CELEBRATION

In Conversation: Will WIlson

6:00 PM

The Museum
Free
Lectures & Talks
Image
BW

LECTURE: Louise Dixey and Velda Racehorse on Benedicte Wrensted

Portraits of Shoshone-Bannock Tribes

5:30 PM

The Museum
Exhibition Tours & Events, Lectures & Talks
Image
In Conversation: Will Wilson

EVENING EXHIBITION TOUR: In Conversation: Will Wilson

5:30 PM

The Museum
Lectures & Talks
Image
Amy Sherald

ART CLUB: Portraiture in the 21st Century

5:30 PM

The Museum
Exhibition Tours & Events, Lectures & Talks
Image
Will Wilson

EVENING EXHIBITION TOUR: In Conversation: Will Wilson

5:30 PM

The Museum
Lectures & Talks
Image
SofiaJaramillo

ART CLUB: Portraiture in the 21st Century

5:30 PM

The Museum
Exhibition Tours & Events, Lectures & Talks
Image
In Conversation: Will Wilson

EVENING EXHIBITION TOUR: In Conversation: Will Wilson

5:30 PM

The Museum
Lectures & Talks, Exhibition Tours & Events
Image
Will Wilson (b. 1969), Will Wilson, Citizen of the Navajo Nation, Trans-customary Diné Artist, 2013

ARTIST TALK: Will Wilson

5:30 PM

The Museum