Steve Fitch sees the crumbling schools, churches and dance halls of the high planes with the sensibilities of a photographer and an anthropologist
A show featuring his work, titled “Gone: Photographs of Abandonment on the High Plains,” will be at the UNM Art Museum until March 23.
A member of the Society of Commercial Archaeology, Fitch received a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from the University of California. He also has a master’s of fine arts from UNM and teaches photography at the College of Santa Fe. This odd combination of disciplines allows him to bring his own vision to a subject generations of artists have explored.
Unlike the 19th-century romantic artists, who also loved ruins, Fitch is not interested in the remnants of majestic buildings set against moody landscapes. He photographs abandoned homes, public spaces and possessions of ordinary people. His photographs are not taken from a distance, but from inside. And some of the interiors are not inviting.
In “Honky-tonk near Vaughn, eastern New Mexico,” water has leaked through holes in the roof, mixed with some brown-and-black gunk and coved the floor. The texture of light reflected on this murky liquid seems more like reflections on oil than water. There is no place to stand without getting wet feet.
Music notes painted on the far wall, testify to a time when this interior was inviting. Painted on the corner of the same wall is an asymmetrical green object that can only be read as a flying saucer.
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Early modernists exhausted the abstract possibilities of peeling paint and wallpaper. Because Fitch does not have a modernist’s detachment, his photographs cover new ground. “Spaceship wallpaper in a bedroom in Yoder, eastern Wyoming” has a lyrical abstract composition, but hints at details of the life of the boy who lived there.
A tire swing hangs from a tree outside the window and the 1950s sci-fi spaceships cause the viewer to speculate about the age of the man who grew up there. These are the ruins of Fitch’s generation and he allows us to glimpse a little of what he understands about the people who left these houses, schools and possessions behind.
“During the ‘50s and ‘60s, I was raised in spaces like these and taught from similar blackboards,” Fitch wrote in a recent artist’s statement. “I also recognize the nightmarish, spooky look these pictures have because it resembles how I imagined the remains of our world might look if the Cold War ever did produce its nuclear war,”
“Detail of airplane wallpaper in akid’s bedroom in Yeso, eastern New Mexico” reflects Fitch’s childhood anxieties. White-convex lines represent fluffy clouds in the original design, but dark-brown water stains read as a gathering storm.
UNM Press has recently published a book of Fitch’s work with the same title as the show.
There will be an artist’s talk and book signing at the museum Tuesday, Feb. 25, at 5:30 p.m. The UNM Art Museum is located in Popejoy Hall. Admission is free.
