Go West, young man (and woman), to the Beinecke

Exhibition’s photos tell stories, raise questions

Marion Belanger’s photograph from 2003 Utah shows three hunters on a brown, grassy plain, smiling broadly as they walk away from a hunt on a migratory bird refuge with white swans in hand and gray clouds overhead. Sounds bad, but it turns out swans are not an endangered species, the hunt is regulated and legal and the photo demonstrates the Western balance between preservation and land use.

We learned that backstory from George Miles, curator of Western Americana for Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, who confessed to being a prolific talker at a Thursday preview of the Beinecke’s new visual exhibition, “Eye on the West: Photography and the Contemporary West.”

So why are the rich photos in this show minimally titled with just photographer, title and sometimes place or event? Because there would be too much story to relay on a wall card, Miles said, and each of the 158 photos tells several stories if you look close. The chosen images are well-crafted puzzles, in a way, that spur curiosity and the imagination.

For almost two centuries, Miles said, “photographers have been some of the most interesting, important, significant observers, chroniclers (and) critics of the American West — as a place, as a homeland for multiple, divergent, diverse cultures and as a stage for really significant events in American social and political history.”

This collection, a narrow segment of the estimated 250,000 photos in Beinecke’s archives, covers from 1960 to 2016 instead of the usual iconic photography of Gold Rush, transcontinental railroad or Dust Bowl. The modern-age photos — no less imbued with stories — have roots in the acquisition of a photo collection by Yale alum David Plowden, whose book “The Handyman in America” converted Miles to the idea that “we need to collect contemporary photography.”

Yale has been building such archives for almost a quarter-century — from photojournalists, activists, scholars and fine art photographers. There are 20 photographers showcased here, 17 in some depth (and eight of those are women, including Yale School of Art grad Belanger of Guilford).

“There’s no master narrative here,” said Miles, also known as the longtime curator of swimmers on the Branford Stingrays swim team. The photos instead are an opportunity to consider the ways that photos inform us and, at times, misinform us about the West and its people, influencing national policy.

Looking through about 8,500 photos, Miles said, the categories formed in his mind. Prints downstairs on the ground floor show themes of the land, human marks on the land, working, ceremony and development. On the other side of the lobby are photos of recreation, activism (early photos of Johnny Cochrane), conflict (a tear-gassed water protector at the 2016 Backwater Bridge “battle” in North Dakota), destruction (Laura McPhee’s 2013 photo of an open-pit coal mine), remnants and regrowth.

Talking about photojournalists, sometimes downplayed by arts snobs, Miles said, “To me, these folks that are working in the moment, having to respond to what they see, are also incredibly creative and are working to craft images that have extraordinary impact.” Amen to that.

On the mezzanine, curved cases at the head of the stairs feature nicely matted portraits of faces and young people of the West. Also, display cases show popular photobooks of the West.

Missing are photos involving TV and movie stars; our culture arguably has a vast surplus of those southern California and Las Vegas images to hijack our perceptions and warp our understanding.

One way to find out more about each photo is to Google the events and places as you’re standing there, but there’s also a large, tiltedscreen touch display on the mezzanine to filter searches and get a biographical sketch of the photographers.

“This is a show that I hope shows the tensions as well as achievements in the West,” Miles said, “that makes people think not only about how beautiful parts of the country are and how remarkable the cultures are, but also the conflicts and some of the challenges and ... the real questions about our relationship to the landscape.”

The exhibition runs through Dec. 16 with an opening reception and lecture Sept. 21 at 4:30 p.m. There will be music events Sept. 25, Nov. 28 and Dec. 4 and a few other lectures. See beinecke.library.yale.edu.

Courtesy of Beinecke Library The Eye on the West banner at the Beinecke.

Courtesy of David Ottenstein A view of the Keokuk Power Plant in Iowa. It’s the largest hydroelectric power plant in the world after Hoover Dam, said curator George Miles, and “it’s running nearly 100 years after its construction with the same bearings (from) 1923.”