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Critical Indigenous Photographic Exchange Collection

 Collection
Call Number: WA Photos Folio 184

Content Description

Portraits created by Will Wilson of Native American artists, arts professionals, and leaders as well as others, 2012-2020. He generally makes his portraits at public venues at which people are given the opportunity to sit. Wilson created the images using a wet plate collodion process that produced tintypes on sheets of aluminum. He then gave the tintypes to the sitters after he created high-resolution digital scans of the objects. The arrangement of the collection gathers the portraits by the event/site at which the tintypes were made. The 612 inkjet prints in the collection derive from the digital scans of the tintypes.

Wilson titled, signed, and dated inkjet prints on rectos in English, except for the series, PHOTO/SYNTHESIS, which has inscriptions on the versos of the inkjet prints. All prints additionally designated "Beinecke Edition."

Throughout the collection, Wilson uses abbreviations to designate portraits made at particular sites. These abbrevations include "CIPX" for Critical Indigenous Photographic Exchange and then designations for the site such as "NMMA" for New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Dates

  • 2012 - 2020

Creator

Language of Materials

Inscriptions in English.

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open for research

Conditions Governing Use

The Critical Indigenous Photographic Exchange Collection is the physical property of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Literary rights, including copyright, belong to the authors or their legal heirs and assigns. For further information, consult the appropriate curator.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Purchased from Peters Projects, Llc, on Walter McClintock Memorial Fund, 2017. Purchased from Will Wilson on Walter McClintock Memorial Fund, 2018-2021.

Arrangement

Organized into 28 series: I. Santa Fe Studio, 2012. II. New Mexico Museum of Art, 2012. III. Santa Fe Art Institute, 2012. IV. Institute of American Indian Arts, 2012. V. Denver Art Museum, 2013. VI. School for Advanced Research, 2013. VII. Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, 2013. VIII. Red Dot Gallery, 2015. IX. Portland Art Museum, 2016. X. PHOTO/SYNTHESIS, 2016. XI. Spoken Through Clay, 2016. XII. Seattle Art Museum, 2017. XIII. Tempe Center for the Arts, 2018. XIV. Santa Fe Community College, 2018. XV. New Mexico Museum of Art, 2012. XVI. Photo LA, 2013. XVII. Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, 2013. XVIII. University of South Australia, 2013. XIX. National Museum of the American Indian, 2014. XX. Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) of Massachusetts, 2019. XXI. New Mexico School for the Arts and the SITE Santa Fe, 2013. XXII. Tufts University Art Gallery, 2016. XXIII: Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, 2018. XXIV. Peabody Essex Museum, 2018. XXV. Nordamerika Native Museum, 2019. XXVI. Center for the Study of the Southwest, Texas State University, 2019. XXVII. Westmoreland Museum of American Art, 2019. XXVIII. Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2020.

Extent

97.51 Linear Feet (44 boxes)

Catalog Record

A record for this collection is available in Orbis, the Yale University Library catalog

Persistent URL

https://hdl.handle.net/10079/fa/beinecke.wilsoncipx

Abstract

Portraits created by Will Wilson of Native American artists, arts professionals, and leaders as well as others, 2012-2020. He generally makes his portraits at public venues at which people are given the opportunity to sit. Wilson created the images using a wet plate collodion process that produced tintypes on sheets of aluminum. He then gave the tintypes to the sitters after he created high-resolution digital scans of the objects. The arrangement of the collection gathers the portraits by the event/site at which the tintypes were made. The 612 inkjet prints in the collection derive from the digital scans of the tintypes.

Will Wilson (born 1969)

Will Wilson is a Diné photographer. He studied photography at Oberlin College (Bachelor of Arts, Studio Art and Art History, 1993) and the University of New Mexico (Master of Fine Arts in Photography, 2002). Since 2014, Wilson has supervised the photography program in the School of Arts, Design and Media Arts at Santa Fe Community College, New Mexico.

Processing Information

Collections are processed to a variety of levels, depending on the work necessary to make them usable, their perceived research value, the availability of staff, competing priorities, and whether further accruals are expected. The library attempts to provide a basic level of preservation and access for all collections, as well as more extensive processing of higher priority collections as time and resources permit. This guide derives from a detailed examination of each print. Titles transcribed from inscriptions on prints and corrected in notes when necessary. Dates in the collection reflect the date of image capture.

During the initial processing of the collection, Series I-XIV were arranged chronologically by site of each Critical Indigenous Photographic Exchange from 2012 to 2018. Additions to the collection in 2019-2020 and described in Series XV-XX added portraits created from 2012 to 2014 as well as 2019, which are organized chronologically. Additions to the collection in 2021 and described in Series XXI-XXVIII added portraits created from 2013, 2016, and 2018 to 2020, which are organized chronologically.

Title
Guide to the Critical Indigenous Photographic Exchange Collection
Status
Completed
Author
by Matthew Daniel Mason
Date
February 2019
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description note
Finding aid written in English.

Part of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Repository

Contact:
P. O. Box 208330
New Haven CT 06520-8330 US
(203) 432-2977

Location

121 Wall Street
New Haven, CT 06511

Opening Hours

Access Information

The Beinecke Library is open to all Yale University students and faculty, and visiting researchers whose work requires use of its special collections. You will need to bring appropriate photo ID the first time you register. Beinecke is a non-circulating, closed stack library. Paging is done by library staff during business hours. You can request collection material online at least two business days in advance of your visit, using the request links in Archives at Yale. For more information, please see Planning Your Research Visit and consult the Reading Room Policies prior to visiting the library.