STORY BY KAREN BOSSICK

PHOTOS COURTESY OF SUN VALLEY MUSEUM OF ART

At the turn of the 20th century Edward S. Curtis traveled through the west to photograph Native Americans and their ways of life as, it was feared, the traditions of the first Americans were disappearing.

However, he reduced his subjects to archetypes, often providing props and making sure elements of modern life did not appear in his portraits.

Now in the 21st century Dine artist Will Wilson has created a contemporary vision of Native North America designed to crate new conversations that decenter the work of Curtis.

That exhibition “In Conversation: Will Wilson” opens Friday at the Sun Valley Museum of Art in Ketchum. It will kick off with a Member Preview and Exhibition Tour at 5 p.m. Friday, Oct. 11, at The Museum. And an Opening Celebration will follow for the general public at 6 p.m. the same evening.

Additionally, Will Wilson will talk about his work at 5:30 p.m. Monday, Dec. 16. And Louise Dixey and Velda Racehorse will discuss Danish-American photographer Benedicte Wrensted’s “Portraits of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes” at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 17.

“In Conversation: Will Wilson,” which features a selection of works from Wilson’s ongoing “Critical Indigenous Photographic Exchange” project in dialogue with photographs by Edward S. Curtis, comes to the Sun Valley Museum of Art from Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art founded in Bentonville, Ark., by arts patron Alice Walton of the WalMart family.

Wilson, who earned a Master’s in Fine Arts at the University of New Mexico near the Navajo Nation where he grew up, allows his sitters to determine the pose, clothing and props. He then employs a wet-plate collodion photographic technique based on the 19th century method that involves exposing and developing a plate that has been coated in light-sensitive chemicals. He pushes the CIPX project into the contemporary by using augmented reality technology to bring his photographs to life.

Edward Curtis, he told the Metropolitan Museum of Art, “created typologies of people in a strange ethnographic way, reinforcing a pseudoscience built on a foundation of white supremacy.”

Sun Valley Museum of Art has created an “In Conversation: Will Wilson” mobile educational tour that will tour schools and community organizations in Pocatello, Fort Hall and other southeastern Idaho towns from mid-October to mid-December 2024.

The Mobile Museum will include reproductions of artworks by Wilson, Curtis and Wrensted, as well as photographs by “Sho-Ban News” photographers Lori Edmo, Roselynn Yazzie and Jeremy Shay.

Two SVMoA educators will travel with the Mobile Museum to engage students and visitors in an exploration of the exhibition.

“We are so grateful to have dedicated support from Art Bridges and the Idaho Commission on the Arts, allow us to share ‘In Conversation: Will Wilson” with students in southern Blaine County and southeastern Idaho,” said Elizabeh Herrick, director of Advancement for the SVMoA. “Funds from a grant from Art Bridges, the Wood River Women’s Foundation and an ICA Arts Education Grant will allow SVMoA to extend its reach beyond the Museum walls through the creation of the mobile exhibition tour.”

Dovetailing with the Will Wilson exhibit is “Portraits of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, Past & Present.” This exhibition, curated by SVMoA’s assistant director Courtney Gilbert, features photographs taken by Danish-American photographer Benedicte Wrensted, who opened a photography studio in Pocatello in 1895.

Unlike Curtis, Wrensted allowed her sitters, which included members of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, to present themselves as they wish. She photographed members of the Tribes in both traditional regalia and settler dress.

Born in 1859, she learned photography, considered one of the few professions suitable for women at the time, from her aunt. She immigrated to the United States in 1894, winding up in Pocatello where her brother lived.

Many of her images are preserved at the Smithsonian Institution and the National Archives. It was there that a Smithsonian anthropologist came across Wrensted’s photographs marked “B. Wrested, Pocatello” in a box of Bannock County images. Determined to find out more, she consulted tribal elders from the Fort Hall Indian Reservation and others.

What set her work apart, said the anthropologist Joanna Cohan Scherer, was her skill at portraying the humanity and the individuality of those who posed for her as “she captured their presence with a dignity and beauty that transcend time and place.”

ASSOCIATED PROGRAMS AND EVENTS

ART CLUB: PORTRAITURE IN THE 21st CENTURY

Wednesday, Nov. 6, and Dec. 4, 5:30 p.m.

FREE to members/$15 nonmember

These discussions explore how contemporary artists, including Will Wilson, are approaching the genre of portraiture in new and innovative ways and how portraits can express not just the identity of the sitter but larger ideas reflecting the time and place in which they are made.

MEMBER PREVIEW AND EXHIBITION TOUR

Friday, Oct. 11, 5-6 p.m.

SVMoA Members' curatorial preview and exhibition tour before the Opening Celebration.

OPENING CELEBRATION

Friday, Oct. 11, 6-7 p.m. FREE

TRIBES. PAST & PRESENT LECTURE

Louise Dixey and Velda Racehorse will discuss Benedicte Wrensted’s Portraits of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes

Thursday, Oct. 17, 5:30 p.m. Sun Valley Museum of Art. FREE, pre-registration suggested as space is limited.

Louise Dixey, Cultural Resources Director at the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, and Velda Racehorse, Archivist at the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, will discuss Danish American photographer Benedicte Wrensted, who made portraits of many members of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes in her photography studio in Pocatello, Idaho, at the turn of the 20th century.

BILINGUAL COMMUNITY WORKSHOP: PORTRAITURE AND SELF-REPRESENTATION

At SVMoA’s Día de los Muertos Celebration Saturday, Oct. 19, 1-3 p.m. The Hunger Coalition, Bellevue

Participants are invited to bring objects and wear clothing that represents who they are and how they want to be seen. A photographer will take portraits of families, friends and individuals. Polaroid cameras will also be on hand for participants to photograph each other. Everyone will receive a copy of their portrait to take with them.

EVENING EXHIBITION TOURS

Thursday, Oct. 24, Nov. 21 and Dec. 12, 5:30 p.m. Sun Valley Museum of Art. FREE

Join SVMoA’s curator for a tour of In Conversation: Will Wilson and Portraits of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, Past & Present.

ARTIST TALK: WILL WILSON

Monday, Dec. 16, 5:30 p.m. Sun Valley Museum of Art. FREE, pre-registration suggested as space is limited.

Join Diné artist Will Wilson for a talk about his practice, his Critical Indigenous Photographic Exchange and his work to continue and transform customary Indigenous cultural practice while working against the “archival impulse” embedded in historical images of Native people.

WHAT iS ART BRIDGES?

Art Bridges is the vision of philanthropist and arts patron Alice Walton. The mission of Art Bridges is to expand access to American art in all regions across the United States. Since 2017, Art Bridges has been creating and supporting programs that bring outstanding works of American art out of storage and into communities.

For more information, visit www.artbridgesfoundation.org.