Leisl Carr Childers on The Gus Bundy Photographs and The Wild Horse Controversy

摘要

When you look at the horse in the photograph, you immediately recognize the animal's aggressive posture. The mare stands raised up on her hi0nd legs; her front feet paw the air in front of her. Nostrils flared and ears alert, she stares darkly down at the viewer. Boldly centered in the picture frame, her powerful body vividly contrasts with the gentle clouds and mirage-like desert landscape surrounding her. The only evidence of any human presence is a line of rope leading from her neck out of the picture frame. While this image of a rearing wild horse by the Nevada artist Gus Bundy is magnificent, simply gazing at it does not nearly convey the influence it has had in shaping environmental debates in the twentieth-century West. This Gallery essay examines the story of what happened outside this photograph's picture frame (and the collection of 215 images of which it is a part), as much as within it.