Canyon de Chelly, Arizona (Spider Rock)
Artist
Joan Myers
(American, born 1944)
Printer
Wendy Young
(American, born 1963)
Date2013
Mediumpigment print
DimensionsImage: 22 × 14 1/2 in. (55.9 × 36.8 cm)
Support: 24 × 16 3/4 in. (61 × 42.5 cm)
Support: 24 × 16 3/4 in. (61 × 42.5 cm)
ClassificationsPhotograph
Credit LineGift of Joan Myers, 2017
Object number2017.5.26
DescriptionBlack bird perched atop a bar tree, rocky mesa cliff in the background.Text Entries
Acutely aware of the iconography and symbols
used to romanticize life in the West, Myers photographs the intersecting spaces
where contemporary Western life, often raw and complex, overlaps with myth. The
artist contrasts imagery of the natural world with the man-made, often using
highly saturated color to emphasize the commercialization and commodification
of the West. In other images, she shoots in black-and-white, channeling old
movies and a patina of nostalgia. The resulting images constitute a rich visual
tapestry that weaves together American mythology of the West with its many
histories and present-day practices.
During the preparations for her 2014 solo
exhibition at the museum, the artist offered that if the museum purchased work
from the show in the amount of $5,000.00 she would donate the remaining prints
from the show to the collection. This offer was presented to the Collections
Committee who expressed reservations about taking the entire group. Curator
was asked to come back with a new proposal of a smaller group of work and to
present that as part of an acquisitions proposal for the entire Focus on
Photography series, of which Myers show was a part. The final group includes
the purchase of two photographs and a donation of work by the artist drawn from prints in the
exhibition and from her larger body of work.
On View
Not on view