|
Bill Wittliff was an extraordinary man; a prolific author, screenwriter, editor, publisher, and world-class photographer, Texas Humanities called him a true Renaissance man. Born in Taft, Texas in 1940, William Dale Wittliff studied journalism and the University of Texas at Austin, later starting his own publishing house, Encino Press, in 1964. In the year 1986, Wittliff founded the Southwest Writers Collection at Texas State University, featuring work from authors and songwriters in Texas and the American Southwest. In 1996, the Wittliff Collection of Southwestern and Mexican photography was founded, later renamed the Wittliff Collections, and became one of the most extensive collections of Southwestern materials in the United States. Sadly, on June 9th, 2019, Bill Wittliff passed away from a heart attack, leaving behind a legacy of photographic archives at Texas State University.
On the seventh floor of the Alkek Library on Texas State’s campus there is an exhibition featured in the Wittliff Collections. The exhibit titled SunriseSunset: Solargraphs from Plum Creek features twelve of Bill Wittliff’s solargraphs he created while experimenting with pinhole photography. In his own words he said about his creations, “I want to see new worlds on a piece of paper.” What he means by this quotation is indicative to how he created the solargraphs. By leaving pieces of photographic paper fixed into specific cylindrical containers, he would then affix these cylinders to various vertical posts around his ranch property near Luling, Texas, followed by poking holes into these containers in order to capture the “painting” done by the sun and earth’s rotation, with some of the solargraphs sitting in the sun for weeks to months on end. Wittliff’s experimentation with this technique of pinhole photography has left behind remarkable works of art that captured his vision of the cosmos. SunriseSunset is a truly stunning collection of work that arguably needs a more emphasizing exhibit to capture the level of craftsmanship Wittliff produced in his solargraphs. The exhibit itself is setup like most photography exhibits, photographs hung up on walls like paintings, establishing their function as art visually like other mediums. All of Wittliff’s solargraphs hung up on various walls, equidistant from one another, in the main room of the Wittliff Collections. These solargraphs are spread out from one another on three separate walls but remain close in order to keep the collection together, with three solargraphs on one wall, four on another, and the remaining five on the longest wall. The lighting of the exhibit is hung from the ceiling in a series of low-light bulbs that create a warm atmosphere around the solargraphs. Much like when going to an art museum, SunriseSunset is well lit but is not bright enough to cause the photographs to be washed out. In front of the main wall that holds five of the twelve solargraphs is a seating arrangement; two leather upholstered benches that sit just in front of the works. The other two walls that display the remaining seven works have no seating as these walls are bordering two different doorways. The solargraphs themselves are all displayed in similar black wooden frames, sizes varying, with an artwork display card next to them found in the bottom right corner of the work. The display cards name the solargraph they are representing as well as the amount of days Wittliff had the photographic paper sitting out in the sun. As a whole, the setup of SunriseSunset is spacious and very open, allowing viewers to walk around freely without feeling too closed in. This specific arrangement of works functions more closely to a painting exhibition due the formless nature of the solargraphs. Formless, in this sense meaning that there are not distinguishable figures or objects in the solargraphs besides the clear representations of trees found in a few of Wittliff’s works. Because of this, the solargraphs do resemble paintings more so than photographs and contrast with the “mechanical reproduction” argument photography has dealt with when being viewed as art. The solargraphs in SunriseSunset vary in both color and form due to Wittliff’s experimental technique using pinhole photography over time. The colors seen in Wittliff’s solargraphs range in a variety of natural tones such as: greens, browns, blues, and oranges. Between these colors are smooth transitions without any harsh lines dividing up space. This effect creates the “sky” in the pseudo landscapes which establishes an otherworldly tone, as Wittliff wanted to recreate the cosmos in his works. Some of the solargraphs are similar in form, such as Angel Wing, Golden Arches, and Path to the Beach, displaying similar arching lines in a pseudo landscape. Other solargraphs, like Fairy Fire, Monet’s Watercolor, and Hole in the Sky, appear as if they had been hand painted with watercolor paints, which once again, narrows the overlap of photography and painting. These three solargraphs all depict soft transitions between colors and use of differing values without a clear “landscape”, as seen in Golden Arches, Winter Solstice, and Enchanted Forest. It appears that the longer Wittliff had his solargraphs out in the sun, more of the values became lighter and could be seen in his works. The solargraphs that were only in the sun from fifteen to twenty-eight days were much darker in value than the ones that were exposed for longer periods of time. The function of Wittliff’s titles for his solargraphs further back-up the idea of recreating the cosmos through photography, as if each individual solargraph is depicting a different world Wittliff managed to capture. Wittliff’s use of formless photography and of naturalistic earth tones create works that depict an atmosphere of an ethereal world. I believe Wittliff achieved his goal of finding new worlds and creating the cosmos in his own vision. By using the world around him and the natural rotation of the earth, Wittliff captured an “in-between” world only seen through the use of his pinhole photography technique. With that being said, I do not think the way SunriseSunset was exhibited really reflects how innovative Wittliff’s photography technique truly is. When comparing the idea and goal of Wittliff’s work to the arrangement it was then exhibited in, the energy does not feel the same. SunriseSunset needs to be exhibited in a more modern way; what I mean by this is that the solargraphs need a stronger emphasis in order to rely the innovative work Wittliff created. In the Wittliff Collections, there is an entire hall closed off and dedicated to one exhibit with tile floors, feeling grander and more important than the open, one room arrangement the solargraphs are in. I feel that the solargraphs would have a larger impact on the viewer if the works in SunriseSunset were displayed in that hall, giving the opportunity to display the true power of Wittliff’s vision. |