The American West, with its expansive landscapes and wide- open skies, has long stood as a symbol for individual freedom and economic opportunity. A new exhibit at the Yale University Art Gallery, however, reveals how those lands and that skyline have been transformed over the past century by those who came to the region to tap its vast resources.
Titled "Crossing the Frontier: Photographs of the Developing West," the new exhibit will feature approximately 230 images -- many of which have never been on public display before -- documenting the optimistic development and eventual exploitation of the western United States. The show will be on view April 11-June 8.
"'Crossing the Frontier' offers a new perspective on Western landscapes," says Susan Vogel, the Henry J. Heinz II Director of the Yale Art Gallery. "Going far beyond the familiar depictions of nature's grandeur, the exhibition documents the ambiguous after-effects of human activity and complicates the enduring myth of the American West with ironic images of bicyclists at the 'pristine' frontier, awesome towers of timber boards, a fledgling Las Vegas, and poetic photographs of contemporary subdivisions."
The show was organized by Sandra S. Phillips, curator of photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Ms. Phillips also wrote several of the essays in the catalogue accompanying the exhibit, and will give a lecture marking the opening of the display at 4:30 p.m. on Friday, April 11, in the Yale Art Gallery lecture hall, entrance on High Street. The talk is free and open to the public.
"Crossing the Frontier" depicts the changes both in the landscapes of the American West and in the attitudes of the men and women who captured those transformations on film. The photographers who recorded the early years of the region's exploration and "mastery" were, on the whole, enthusiastic about putting the land to good use, according to Ms. Phillips. "Their work documents a procession of rivers bridged, western sod plowed under, mineral resources mined, irrigation systems developed, rails and roadways constructed, and the West reinvented as a site of industry, habitation, leisure and recreation," she says. In recent decades, however, photographers have focused more on the waste and disfigurement of the landscape, she notes.
The opening segment of the exhibit seeks to capture the optimism that defined the American West from 1849 to the 1930s, and features works by such noted photographers as Timothy O'Sullivan, William Henry Jackson, A.J. Russell and Alexander Gardner, who participated in the land surveys to study the region's resources and identify possible rail routes.
Other sections of "Crossing the Frontier" cover a number of themes. "Mining and Oil Extraction" contrasts images of a lone forty- niner with his pick, shovel and pan, with scenes of acres of oil derricks in soot-blackened fields. The "Open Land" section juxtaposes scenes of industrial activity and toxic waste sites with "before" and "after" images of the Mount St. Helens eruption.
In "Agriculture, Water, and Lumber," there are pictures of the farm families who braved the harsh climate and isolation of the western prairies, as well as images of the huge dam-building projects that helped irrigate the desert and the area's logging camps.
"The Growth of Cities and the Recreational Use of the Land" records the urbanization of the West -- from the rise and disappearance of railroad towns and other communities to the development of the region as a major tourist attraction. The concluding section of the exhibit, "The Developed West," features pictures of residential "sprawl," as well as the artificial ecology of the region's golf courses and the transformation of the desert into the city of Las Vegas.
Richard S. Field, curator of prints, drawings and photographs, organized the Yale showing of "Crossing the Frontier." He notes: "By simply showing images that document how the land has been used we are allowed, even urged, to reflect for ourselves on the enduring myths of western individualism and its conflicts with collective need."
In conjunction with the exhibit, the Yale Art Gallery will host a conference on Saturday, April 19. Further information on this event will appear in the next issue of the Yale Bulletin & Calendar.
"Crossing the Frontier" was made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Foundation for Deep Ecology. The Yale exhibit is also supported by the Robert Lehman Exhibition and Publication Fund.
The Yale University Art Galley is located at 1111 Chapel St. The gallery and its sculpture garden are open to the public free of charge 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday and 2-5 p.m. Sunday. A museum entrance for persons using wheelchairs is located at 201 York St.; call 432-0601 for further information about access. The number for general information is 432-0600.