ATLANTA — The story of two intrepid folks setting off on a journey to discover the huge expanse of the USA is well-worn by now. Impressed by the colonialist precept of Manifest Future, the idea that American settlers have been destined to take possession of the land from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast, intertwined with exceptionalism and transcendence, has impressed many canonized tales starting from “Great American Novels” like Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to counterculture classics corresponding to On the Street by Jack Kerouac.
As with the ideology that White settlers used to rationalize the genocide of Indigenous folks, these tales have at all times prioritized cis-het White male characters and their self-actualization, typically whereas sidelining, exploiting, or eliminating others who don’t match that very particular set of traits. The ensuing picture of Americana lengthy ingrained within the nation’s collective consciousness is certainly one of privilege and pillaging cloaked within the romantic elegant. It’s inside this historical past that Kelli Connell creates her artwork.
Kelli Connell, “Preston” (2013), pigmented inkjet print, 32 x 40 inches (81.28 x 101.6 cm) (© Kelli Connell)
Connell turns to Edward Weston’s collaborations with and images of author Charis Wilson because the inspiration for her exhibition, Footage for Charis, on the Excessive Museum of Artwork. Within the Thirties, Weston and Wilson, who have been romantically concerned, traversed the American West, resulting in their co-authored e-book California and the West (1940). The e-book contains dozens of Weston’s pictures of the locales they visited, many that includes Wilson inside the panorama, corresponding to “Floating Nude”(1939). Nonetheless others focus solely on exploring Wilson’s physique, as in “Nude” (1934). In truth, Wilson is sort of at all times photographed within the nude. The continuous insertion of her type inside these landscapes creates the impression that her physique is yet one more a part of it — one other useful resource for Weston to make use of.
Connell and her then-partner, Betsy Odom, retraced Weston and Wilson’s journey, photographing comparable compositions in lots of the similar locations. Displayed collectively in the identical house, the 2 our bodies of labor seem practically an identical — Connell’s “Doorway II” (2015) and Weston’s “Nude” (1936) are significantly alike. Connell’s reenactment of Weston and Wilson’s collaboration reclaims the presentation of femininity for ladies and contextualizes it inside a framework of gay (and, importantly, non-male) need however her work doesn’t deconstruct or refuse the romanticized American panorama that Weston and Wilson helped visualize. Connell’s pictures comprise all the identical poetic grandiosity as Weston’s. Each photographers present that the terrain of the USA is huge however solely in Connell’s work does the topic of the images, together with the land that surrounds her, exist for greater than the artist alone. Right here, there may be room sufficient for us all.
Edward Weston, “Nude” (1936), gelatin silver print, 9 7/16 x 7 1/2 inches (~24 x 19.05 cm) (© Heart for Inventive Pictures, College of Arizona: Edward Weston Archive/ Reward of the Heirs of Edward Weston)
Edward Weston, “Dunes, Oceano” (1936), gelatin silver print, 7 1/2 x 9 9/16 inches (19.05 x ~24.3 cm) (© Heart for Inventive Pictures, College of Arizona: Edward Weston Archive/ Reward of the Heirs of Edward Weston)
Kelli Connell, “Doorway II” (2015), pigmented inkjet print, 20 x 25 inches (50.8 x 63.5 cm) (© Kelli Connell)
Kelli Connell, “Oceans Dunes” (2016), pigmented inkjet print, 40 x 50 inches (101.6 x 127 cm) (© Kelli Connell)
Edward Weston, “Nude” (1934), gelatin silver print, 4 1/2 x 3 9/16 inches (11.43 x ~9.05 cm) (© Heart for Inventive Pictures, College of Arizona: Edward Weston Archive)
Kelli Connell, “Junipers” (2016), pigmented inkjet print, 40 x 50 inches (101.6 x 127 cm) (© Kelli Connell)
Kelli Connell: Footage for Charis continues on the Excessive Museum of Artwork (1280 Peachtree Road Northeast, Atlanta, Georgia) by January 5, 2025. The exhibition was co-organized by the Excessive Museum, the College of Arizona Heart for Inventive Pictures and the Cleveland Museum of Artwork.