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ACTUAL
EXHIBITION
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Gary Auerbach
NATIVE AMERICAN
From
july 13 to August 11 2002
Exhibition Essay
Images
Made to Last
Platinum Portraits
of Native Americans by Gary
Auerbach
By Maricia
Battle
Curator,
Prints and Photographs
Division, Library of
Congress
While it
is difficult to change
careers in mid-path, we are
appreciative because it
brought Gary Auerbach to
photography, an art form he
both treasures and for which
has true passion. Before
becoming a photographer,
Auerbach was a chiropractic
doctor. As a result of a
hand injury in 1989,
Auerbach put aside his
chiropractic practice, and
turned his attention full
time to what had before been
an earnest hobby.
His work
with cameras in his practice
gave him a natural
familiarity with both large
format cameras and film
characteristics, and his
compassion for the human
subject, made portraiture a
natural progression. He uses
an 8x10 and an 11x14 view
cameras, not your average
large format equipment. But
what further distinguishes
him from other photographers
is his technique of contact
printing the image with
platinum metal salts, which
increases their tactile and
textural luster while
creating an important
archival photographic
record.
American Indians, an
integral part of American
history, have been
represented in the works of
many photographers since the
dawn of photography. James
E. McClees, with Julian
Vannerson and Samuel Cohner,
produced some of the
earliest Native American
images in studios in
Washington, DC in the late
1850s, later joined by the
works of Charles Milton
Bell. Most of this early
work consisted of staged
images of American Indian
dignitaries during their
visits to the Capitol. In
the 1890s, John Hillers and
John Grabill produced some
of the first survey images
of American Indians in their
own environment. It was not
until the turn of the
century that the most
recognized and celebrated of
all the photographers,
Edward S. Curtis, begin his
thirty-year project of
photographing Native
Americans in natural
settings.
Our
curiosity about others and
ourselves has always been an
underlying issue in most
documentary photography. In
light of recent events, that
need to know has resurfaced
with a vengeance. Unlike
earlier anthropological
studies, Curtis seemed able
to rise above the physical
examination of the American
Indian culture to get inside
the soul of the people.
While not an insider, his
camera focused on the
individuality and the
essential humanity of his
Native America subjects.
The same
can be said of Gary
Auerbach's images. He
captures the dignity and
strength of the Native
American culture. He allows
the subject to get
comfortable, to know the
lens and the eye of the
camera in a way that is
clearly non-threatening. It
is said that the eyes are
the windows to the soul, and
you know from looking at
these images, that the
individuals photographed are
at ease with both the
photographer and the camera.
This is not an easy
undertaking, given the
private nature of the Native
Americans. The resulting
images are photographs that
possess the ancestral
qualities Curtis discovered
in his subjects - the heart
of the people.
With
Auerbach’s sensitivity to
the Native American culture,
permanence is clearly a
defining issue. Gary has
explored various printing
methods, and in the
tradition of Curtis, he uses
the precious metals,
platinum and palladium, to
contact print each image.
Each of the photographs in
this collection is
hand-coated with these
metals etched into archival
watercolor papers, ensuring
the permanence of the print
for hundreds of years. A
by-product of this method is
that the photographs have an
ethereal quality, with
unmatched dimension and
depth.
Only time
will tell if Auerbach will
emulate Curtis’ effort to
the degree of producing a
thirty-year masterwork of
American Indians. I do know
he will continue to develop
this body of work because it
is his passion. And with
passion, and expertise,
comes what we call, a work
of art.
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Introduction
John A. Ware, Director Amerind
Foundation, Inc. Dragoon, Arizona
The
Amerind
Foundation was
established in
1937 by
William
Shirley Fulton
who, in a
lifetime of
collecting,
amassed one of
the finest
assemblages of
American
Indian art and
material
culture in the
country. The
collections
were greatly
expanded and
their temporal
span enlarged
by
Amerind-sponsored
archaeological
excavations in
the
southwestern
U.S. and
northern
Mexico in the
1940s through
1970s. When
the Amerind
Museum opened
to the public
in 1987 (prior
to 1987 the
collections
could be
visited only
by appointment)
the
collections
were
especially
strong in the
late
prehistoric
(pre-1540
A.D.) and
historic
periods (post
1540 to 1900).

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When
exhibiting and
interpreting
such
historical
material,
there is
always the
risk that
museum
visitors will
walk away with
the impression
that American
Indians are
part of
America’s
past but not
its present
and future. In
fact, it has
been argued
that museums
shoulder much
of the
responsibility
for conveying
the impression
both at home
and abroad
that Indians
died out with
the buffalo;
that although
some Indians
may still
exist in the
Southwest,
Oklahoma, and
perhaps South
Dakota, their
languages,
world views,
belief systems,
and most other
aspects of
their
traditional
cultures have
been lost,
except for
what museums
have managed
to preserve.
Contrary
to these
impressions,
there are
perhaps as
many people
who identify
themselves as
Native
Americans
today at the
dawn of the
twenty-first
century as
there were at
the close of
the fifteenth
century when
Europeans
first set foot
on the shores
of the
"New
World."
In other words,
despite five
centuries of
invasion,
displacement,
marginalization,
and the
impacts of
European-introduced
diseases,
American
Indians are
still very
much here! In
the words of a
Zuni friend,
"we are
here, now, and
always."
The
photographs of
Gary Auerbach,
friend and
neighbor of
Amerind who
divides his
time between
his studio in
Tucson and
pistachio
orchard in
Dragoon, are a
perfect
antidote to
the "old
Indian things"
that occupy
museum shelves
in
anthropological
museums across
the country.
Gary’s
splendid
platinum
photographs
show American
Indians as
they are today:
friends,
neighbors,
doctors,
parents,
daughters,
sons, poets,
painters;
thoroughly
modern
Americans with
modern
interests and
concerns, but
with a
connection to
past and
tradition that
is palpable
through the
lens of
Auerbach’s
giant camera.
The
Amerind is
pleased to
bring these
images of
contemporary
Native America
to its
audience, in
both this
catalogue and
the exhibition
of Auerbachs
prints at the
Fulton-Hayden
Memorial Art
Gallery at
Amerind. We
thank Gary
Auerbach and
his subjects
for their
vision,
Darlene Kryza
for her design
and Linda
Vidal and John
Davis at
Arizona
Lithographers
for their
production of
the catalogue.
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F O C A L E
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CH-1260 Nyon
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focale@focale.ch
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