Puncuated Pics
Urban Shaman exhibit features photos mixed with punctuation marks
Kristen Pauch-Nolin

Arthur Renwick’s Delegates: Chiefs of the Earth and Sky demonstrates the best in contemporary art. Its extraordinary balance of esthetics, conceptualism and social consciousness results in pieces that are breathtakingly elegant and compellingly poignant.

The exhibition includes 11 mixed-media photographs that explore the people and events surrounding the signing of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. Titled with the names of the delegate chiefs sent to Washington to sign treaties, the pieces include haunting images of the South Dakota landscape.

Renwick’s investigation of the subject began with the discovery of a photo essay profiling the area and its history. Captivated by the images but frustrated by the limited amount of supporting text contained in the book, he began extensive research into the land, its people and its history.

Overwhelmed by a desire to experience and photograph the locations he was studying, Renwick travelled to the area, shooting 20 rolls of film during a four-day visit. The resulting images capture the awesome beauty and diversity of this historically significant and sacred land.

Photographed in black and white, the images include panoramic views of rolling hills, vast plains and sparse forests. Occasionally interrupted by herds of roaming animals (horses and buffalo), each piece appears epic and offers a timeless representation.

Mounted on the bottom half of a large sheet of aluminum, each of the 11 images is paired with a punctuation mark. Cleanly cut into the surface of the continuous metal sheet, the graphic shapes are highlighted by copper inserts located below them.

In ZIN-TAH-GAT-LAT-WAH (Spotted Tail), a line of three periods is positioned above the photograph of a traditional landscape. Functioning as sky, the exposed metal seamlessly completes the otherwise awkwardly cropped image. The circular dots cut into the surface appear as an ellipsis or traces of the moon’s revolutionary path.

The graphic characters (marks of punctuation) combine with the textural surface of the photographs to create a material juxtaposition that effectively connects land with language. Although unusual, the blend highlights the significance of the ciphers that appeared in the treaty documents. Renwick isolates them, suggesting that these moments in between the words — those that would cause the reader to stop, to pause and to consider — are of utmost importance.
Simply framed under glass, the pieces appear monumental within the gallery space. The images are arranged in parallel, symmetrical rows on crisp white walls, and each image appears as a formal marker, document or commemorative plaque. There is a museum quality, a fineness and an ironic institutional formality that contributes to Renwick’s overall conceptual intentions. Here nature is stripped of its colour, contained and put on display.

There is an awesome feeling of respect that surrounds Delegates: Chiefs of the Earth and Sky, both for the native delegates who participated in the signings and for the land they struggled to preserve.

Executed with superb technical skill and conceptual clarity, the pieces demonstrate Renwick’s remarkable ability to create contemporary, provocative and universally relevant works of art inspired by historically significant events.