Four Seasons (Winter)

Artist Wendy Red Star born 1981 Billings, Montana

Date2006

Mediumarchival pigment print on paper, ed. 18/28

Dimensions22 3/4 × 25 7/8 in. (57.8 × 65.7 cm)

ClassificationsPhotography

Credit LineAlbuquerque Museum, gift of Loren G. Lipson, M.D.

Object numberPC2018.3.2

DescriptionA staged winter scene of a woman in the center of the composition dressed in traditional indigenous clothing; her hair is in two long braids. She is in front of a painted backdrop of a snowy forest scene and holds a fake snowball in her hand. She sits on the ground near an artificial cow skull and crows, resting her arm on one knee.

On View

Not on view

Collections

Common Ground 2021

Text Entries

Label Text

Wendy Red Star

Apsáalooke (Crow)

born 1981 Billings, Montana; lives Portland, Oregon

Four Seasons

2006

archival pigment prints on paper, ed. 18/28

gift of Loren G. Lipson, MD

PC2018.3.3

Raised on the Apsáalooke (Crow) reservation in Montana, Wendy Red Star works through a variety of mediums to explore her own heritage and the inherent societal narratives that exist around Native American culture. Red Star utilizes photography to subvert the role it has traditionally played in perpetuating the myth that Indigenous populations exist on the verge of eradication, an underlying theme found throughout the photographs of prominent nineteenth- and twentieth-century photographers like Edward S. Curtis. She breaches the subject with dignity and humor to demand confrontation with the misrepresentations that have existed for hundreds of years. Four Seasons places Red Star at the center of the blatantly artificial scene, a technique Curtis used, although he attempted to mask the artificiality in his photographs, while she uses it to reveal that photography is not always truth.

Label Text

Cuatro estaciones

2006

impresiones con pigmento perdurable sobre papel, ed. 18/28

obsequio de Loren G. Lipson, MD

PC2018.3.3

Criada en la reserva Apsáalooke (Cuervo) de Montana, Wendy Red Star trabaja con una variedad de medios para explorar su propia herencia y las diversas narrativas sociales inherentes que rodean a la cultura indígena americana. Red Star usa la fotografía para subvertir el papel que tradicionalmente ha tenido en perpetuar el mito de que las poblaciones indígenas se encuentran al borde de la extinción, un tema que subyace en las fotografías de destacados fotógrafos de los siglos XIX y XX como Edward S. Curtis. Ella transgrede el tema con dignidad y humor para exigir la confrontación con las falsas representaciones que han existido durante cientos de años. Four Seasons sitúa a Red Star en el centro de una escena descaradamente artificial, una técnica que Curtis utilizó, si bien él trató de enmascarar esa artificialidad en sus fotografías; en cambio, ella se sirve de esa artificialidad para revelarnos que la fotografía no siempre muestra la realidad.