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Email PageCarrara
October 18, 2007- November 24, 2007
Reception: October 18, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
William Wylie
Jenkins Johnson Gallery
521 W 26th St William Wylie #01-81, Carrara (2006) |
There are reasons why Rome was not built in a day—a fact instantly comprehended by looking at William Wylie’s photographs of the ancient marble quarries of Carrara. Massive blocks of veined rock stand firmly planted in open piazzas, having been sliced from the walls of this immense industrial mining complex. Carrara marble is the stuff that not only built empires but also inspired the works of Michelangelo. Prized for its connotations of luxury and privilege, today this particular marble remains the favored material for both the palaces of monarchs and American McMansions. Wylie’s chiseled slabs convey the regal dignity of this stone that has served as the literal foundation of society, past, present and future. His elegant compositions pull out details of striation and geologic compression evident only in the raw blocks immediately after excavation. Through his carefully studied photographs Wylie reveals his innate passion and respect for his subject, fueled by his lifelong involvement with mountain climbing and geology.
Wylie began his photographic exploration of Carrara in 2000. Over the next six years he returned annually aided by support from a Guggenheim Fellowship (2005) and two Visiting Artist Residences at The American Academy in Rome. The project enabled him to combine his interest in the natural world and industry with his poetic sense of light and shadow. The pigment prints of Carrara’s marble blocks capture gorgeous spectrums of black, white, and grey. Wylie’s tone and structure work in perfect equilibrium. Furthermore, his color portraits of Carrara’s stonecutters (known as cavatori) elucidate telling compositional elements through hue. Mountain light illuminates the fine marble dust covering the quarry workers; their clothes, hair, fingernails, and equipment all radiate a soft glow that physically ties them to the mine. Wylie’s awareness of structure informs his portraits but does not detract from the natural grace of his subjects. In these images, he uses all his skills to create a unified continuum of person and place.
Wylie’s poignant studies are superlative examples of in situ photography. The men and the marble in his images express Carrara’s intricate and vibrant environment, where humans work at dismantling the earth to extract the building material of civilization. With a history of more than twenty centuries of marble extraction, Carrara is one of the oldest single-product mine sites still in operation. For some, it is an environmental catastrophe. Wylie’s photographs, however, neither glorify nor indict the Carrara way of life. Instead, they offer a rarified view into a world at once raw and refined.
William Wylie is a professor at the University of Virginia. In 2005, he was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship for his work in the Carrara, Italy marble pits. Additional awards include: The Center for Land Use Interpretation Artist Residency, City of Denver Public Art Commission, Colorado Book Award, and a Colorado Individual Artist Fellowship. Wylie has had solo exhibitions at Second Street Gallery, Charlottesville, VA; Page Bond Gallery, Richmond, VA; University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC; Foiano Fotografia, Foiano, Italy; University of Virginia Art Museum, Charlottesville, VA; The Light Factory, Charlotte, NC; Colorado State University, Ft. Collins, CO; The Print Center, Philadelphia, PA; Colorado Center for the Book, Denver, CO; and he has been included in group shows at: Amon Carter Museum, Ft. Worth, TX; St Louis Art Museum, St Louis, MO; Museum of Fine Art, St. Petersburg, FL; Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ; Fotofest, Houston, TX; and The Art Museum at Princeton University, Princeton, NJ. His photographs are in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Amon Carter Museum, Yale University Art Museum, Princeton University Art Museum, St. Louis Art Museum, Denver Art Museum, Museum of Fine Art, Santa Fe, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Art, among others.
Books and DVDs related to artists in this show
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