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Auto Immune Response #5
Auto Immune Response #5
Auto Immune Response #5

Auto Immune Response #5

Artist (American, Navajo, born 1969)
Date2005 (printed later)
Mediumpigment print
DimensionsImage: 20 1/4 x 60 5/8 in. (51.4 x 154 cm)
Support: 24 x 67 1/4 in. (61 x 170.8 cm)
Frame: 28 3/16 × 71 1/8 × 2 3/16 in. (71.6 × 180.7 × 5.6 cm)
ClassificationsPhotograph
Credit LineGift of Will Wilson, 2013
Object number2013.44
DescriptionFlat desert landscape with blue sky. Two figures dressed in white, collared shirt look out of the composition. Both are wearing gas masks and have dried blood on their faces. They appear to be connected by a twisted length of air hose.
Text Entries

Two images of the artist appear in the photograph, which was taken in New Mexico.

 

The Auto Immune Response series began  in 2005 with an initial group of  images made for an exhibition at the Heard Museum, organized by Joe Baker. The artist’s idea was to trace the story of  a Navajo man in a post-apocalyptic world, traversing an unpopulated, toxic landscape and using prosthetic devices to survive.  The seven works in the show were 45 x 115 inches each. The images include family sites and Dine ceremonial practices. The story evolved as the man finds an abandoned Hogan to use as his home base and the artist created a bed that has air and water pumps. His use of non-standard dimensions for a photograph is intended to emulate how we see and to extend the range of the medium. The series now includes 20 images and may continue as the character moves into a time of reconstruction and begins growing food in the Hogan. In addition to the Heard Museum, work from this series has been shown at the Native American Museum in New York and at the Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis.
In his Auto Immune Response series, Will Wilson enacts the tale of a Navajo man navigating a toxic, post-apocalyptic landscape. Here he appears in duplicate, echoing the Navajo creation story about twins who rid the world of human-eating monsters. The figures appear in the desert, looking for water, and they clay on their foreheads is perhaps a cleansing ritual. The gas masks they wear, with their menacing tubes, remind us of the consequences of not caring for our home.
On View
Not on view