Date/Time
Date(s) - January 16, 2018 - April 21, 2018
10:00 am - 6:00 pm

Location
Gregory Allicar Museum of Art, University Center for the Arts

January 16 –  April 21, 2018

Pompeii Archive

Pompeii Archive features a selection of recent work by American photographer, William Wylie, exploring the archeological site of Pompeii in highly evocative images.
Wylie’s interest in the contemporary state of Pompeii began with his discovery of the work of Giorgio Sommer (1834-1914), a German photographer who documented the excavation of the site in the mid-nineteenth century. An avid historian and collector, Wylie began collecting Sommer’s images and researching his work, particularly Sommer’s strategic use of photography to flatten the picture plane and create layered and stratified images that evoked the archeological processes. Examples of Sommer’s work are also included in the exhibition. This ongoing research, and the body of work that has resulted, was supported by Yale University’s Doran Artist in Residency awards at the Sol and Carol LeWitt estate in Praiano, Italy, where Wylie was a resident in 2012 and 2015.

The Exhibition
This exhibition features eighteen large scale photographs focused on the ongoing process of restoration, discovery and collection of archival remains and materials from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 C.E.  Through Wylie’s photographs, Pompeii is seen as a constantly changing, not static archeological site.  Photographing with a large-format camera, the artist creates highly detailed images, that both evoke Sommer’s nineteenth century oeuvre, and the transitions that continue to mark the site and landscape in the twenty-first century.