February 18 – September 6, 2006
LA VIDA BRINCA | LIFE JUMPS
Photographs by Bill Wittliff
Over the past decade Bill Wittliff has replaced the lenses of some 100 cameras with simple pinholes, returning to photography’s roots in search of ways to render the enduring realities of light and time. Always evocative, often revelatory, the resulting vignettes--which he calls tragaluces (“light swallowers”)--open keyhole views onto an intimate world, with subjects that seem to exist outside the moment in their own private spaces. Titled after Wittliff’s second book published with the University of Texas Press, this celebratory exhibition features almost 60 of his hand-toned silver-gelatin photographs.
Iconic images of Hispanic life predominate the tragaluz photographs in La Vida Brinca. Wittliff photographed fiestas, religious observances, street scenes, people’s faces, and enduring rural landscapes. But with soft focus and surprise elements, these images become dreamlike—scenes from a world where, as Stephen Harrigan says, “reassuring touchstones are likely to dissolve, and where the unseen is always startlingly on view.”
Saturday, March 25, 2006 Exhibit Reception, Program, Book Sale & Signing
The evening begins at 7:00 pm with an hors d’oeuvre reception. At 8:00 pm there will be an informal discussion and Q&A with Stephen Harrigan and Elizabeth Ferrer, authors of the book’s introductory essays, and the photographer, Bill Wittliff. A book signing will follow the panel. La Vida Brinca will be for sale ($54.13, tax included), with proceeds benefiting the Wittliff Gallery.
For more on the UT Press publication of La Vida Brinca, including the introductory essay,
“Bill Wittliff’s Hidden World,” by Stephen Harrigan, visit http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/books/witlav.html.
Stephen Harrigan, longtime writer for Texas Monthly and many other magazines, is the author of four novels, including Gates of the Alamo (Knopf, 2000), and the forthcoming Challenger Park (Knopf, 2006). His other books are nonfiction and include Water and Light: A Diver's Journey to a Coral Reef (reprinted by UT Press for the Southwestern Writers Collection Book Series, 1999). Harrigan, who lives in Austin, has also published a book of poetry and written numerous screenplays, one of which, The Last of His Tribe, was broadcast on HBO. The Southwestern Writers Collection, counterpart to the Wittliff Gallery, is proud to house his major archives.
Elizabeth Ferrer is the former executive director of the Austin Museum of Art, and as an independent curator she created such major touring exhibitions as A Shadow Born of Earth: New Photography in Mexico, and Through the Path of Echoes: Contemporary Art in Mexico. She has published numerous articles and exhibition catalogues, and has lectured extensively about Mexican and Latin American art and photography throughout the United States. Ferrer lives in New York City and works as a freelance art writer and curator.
Bill Wittliff, of Austin, Texas, is a distinguished photographer and writer whose photographs have been exhibited in the United States and abroad, and published not only in his recent book with UT Press, Vaquero: Genesis of the Texas Cowboy, but also in numerous catalogs, books, and periodicals. Cofounder, with his wife, Sally, of the highly regarded Encino Press, Wittliff is also a past president and Fellow of the Texas Institute of Letters and a recipient of major awards for writing, photography book design, and filmmaking. As a screen writer and producer, his credits include The Perfect Storm, The Black Stallion, Legends of the Fall, and Lonesome Dove, among others. The Wittliffs also founded the Southwestern Writers Collection and Wittliff Gallery of Southwestern & Mexican Photography at Texas State University-San Marcos, both of which are celebrating anniversaries this year with a joint gala fundraiser at the Four Seasons in Austin on May 27, 2006.
