Richard Renaldi - The Nicolaysen Art Museum

Richard Renaldi 

Western Lives


Western Lives 

The Nicolaysen Art Museum 

Casper, Wyoming


Western Lives 

Published in conjunction with the exhibition organized by 

The Nicolaysen Art Museum, Casper, Wyoming 

September 14 - December 30th, 2007 

Curated by Lisa Hatchadoorian 

This exhibition is sponsored in part by: 

The True Family Foundation 

and 

©The Nicolaysen Museum of Art, 2007 

©Images, Richard Renaldi 

© Essay, Lisa Hatchadoorian, 2007 

ISBN 978-0-9798485-0-6 


400 East Collins Drive 

Casper, Wyoming 82601 

www.thenic.org 

Printed in Canada by Friesens

Acknowledgements 

Holly Turner, Executive Director 


The beautiful, insightful, and poignant photographic 

portraits by Richard Renaldi convey a universe in a 

single moment. They are deeply empathetic to our 

shared human condition, as well as documenting 

liveslivedincertainplaces:theexpansiveandmythological 

West, the Great Plains region, and the Navajo Nation 

in Arizona. Our deepest appreciation and thanks go 

totheartistforhelpinginallwaystomakethisexhibition, 

Western Lives, a reality. 

Richard Renaldi: Western Lives, reaffirms the 

commitment of the Nicolaysen Art Museum as a 

venue to educate, stimulate, and promote the 

understanding of art so that people can meet, view, 

study, create and enjoy contemporary art of the 

Rocky Mountain Region. A special thank you goes 

to Curator, Lisa Hatchadoorian for spearheading 

this project and bringing this thought-provoking and 

impressive body of work to the location of its subjects. 

This exhibition would not have been possible without 

the great assistance and generosity of a number of 

people and organizations. We are very appreciative of 

the support from Yossi Milo Gallery, NY for aiding 

in the gathering and lending of key artworks. Major 

support for the exhibition and catalog was 

provided by the McMurry Foundation, the Wyoming 

Community Foundation, the Wyoming Arts Council, 

theCasperStar-Tribune,andtheTrueFamilyFoundation. 

We repeatedly thank these generous sponsors for 

their continued support of contemporary art of and 

about the Rocky Mountain Region. They are indeed 

the most giving of benefactors. Through them, our 

communities and cultural life are enriched by 

their appreciation of diverse artwork that speaks 

to the many different and compelling aspects of 

contemporary existence. 

4


Western Lives 

American culture has become singularly obsessed by 

the lurid spectacle surrounding the banal mechanics of 

everyday life. Through endless reality-based television, 

behind-the-scenes exposés on the inner torments and 

tantrums of notorious celebrities, there seems to be a 

boundless need to be filled in looking at the foibles and 

differences of others while comparing them to ourselves and 

our daily, predictable routines. What should be private is 

played out in public in a continuous visual loop. Much of this 

culture glut is an obvious overload of images needing to 

processed, sorted, and forgotten. Who has time to look at 

others, to really look, when surface and quick judgments 

of people are all that matters in such a world Difference, 

whether cultural, racial, or political, is cause for extreme 

divisiveness rather than the opposite of looking for 

common ground in order to bridge perceived gaps. In the 

end, it is quite quaint and homespun in its simplicity—we 

really are all human underneath and worth stopping to 

gaze at to really see and acknowledge. Maybe there is a 

storythere,somethingoutsideournarrowrealmofexperience 

that will cause us to open up and stretch our boundaries 

to possibly connect with another. Beyond that, what is 

there that is most precious and worth striving for 

5

6 

Sean Thomas, Beulah, North Dakota, 2006

7 

Terri, Laramie, Wyoming, 2005

The mesmerizing photographic portraits of Richard Renaldi do 

indeed stop us in our tracks as they force us to see beyond the 

outwardly mundane scrim of yet another anonymous persona 

to something more poignant, strong, fierce, unique, and human 

underneath. Renaldi, like many photographers before him 

(Walker Evans, Garry Winogrand, Stephen Shore), has made 

thatveryAmericantrekacrossthecountry,constantlyphotographing 

its populace and exploring their physical and spiritual ties to 

culture,land,home,geography,andplace. Hisrecentphotographs 

of well-heeled Madison Avenue pedestrians and peoples living 

in the West and Great Plains are imbued by the individual, their 

unique quirks and qualities that tend to blossom and transfix 

us under his lens. Whether it is a small boy dressed in the 

full, weighty, grubby padding of a football uniform or a waitress 

brandishing her mop like a lance and armored in a decorative 

padded apron, we experience the full force of their common, 

shared humanity in grinding out a life where things do not 

come easy. This artist is less interested in the mechanics and 

dynamics of the group. He tends to focus on the solitary 

individual or twosome, captured in their well-worn everyday 

environments. His photographs speak equally in revealing 

personal and archetypal vulnerabilities and strengths, as 

well as evoking a vast sense of place that, like his subjects, 

is both infinite, extraordinarily fascinating, prosaic, and 

daunting to grasp. 

8

8 

Ty James, Tuba City, Arizona, 2004

9 

Erica, Alliance, Nebraska, 2005

Theexhibition “RichardRenaldi:WesternLives,”isacombination 

of three different photographic projects from 2004-2006: 

The Great Plains, Bus Travelers, and Navajo Nation. 

The impetus and spark behind all three is the same in 

that Renaldi photographs people of all ages and walks of 

life through a vast stretch of the country that is probably 

considered off the radar in terms of the urban centers on 

each coast. He also tends to focus somewhat on closed 

communities,asleastinthetemporary—therandomgatherings 

of disparate folks in bus terminals, residents of small towns 

in the middle of the Great Plains or the various peoples 

comprising the Navajo Nation of Arizona. Renaldi’s 

forthright presentation of his subjects, mostly centered 

within the image and straight forwardly facing the camera, 

telegraph a certain confidence in who they are, how they 

presentthemselvestotheworld,andwhattheirexpectations are 

from this particular weighted interaction. For the most 

part, the personae of these three series are embedded in 

the localesandvaststretchesofthecountrythatareasforgettable, 

numbing, and anonymous to some as they are beautiful, 

extraordinary, stark, and gorgeous to others. 

10

11 

Scott, Laramie, Wyoming, 2005

12 

Ernest, Denver, Colorado. 2005

13 

Jeff, Dixie National Forest, Utah, 2004

Renaldiencapsulatesandoffersamostpreciousintimacywithhis 

subjects. They reveal themselves to him and to us in the 

fraughtinteractionthatphotographycreatesbetweensubject, 

artist, and viewer. This relationship combines a certain 

voyeurism on the part of the viewer with the anonymity 

and intense intimacy between subject and artist that exists 

for a short-lived moment. There is no attempt on the part 

of the artist or subject to implicitly dramatize or heroicize 

their situation, even though the images are staged and 

planned with full participation on both sides. They do not 

look as such, which makes all the difference. The process 

by which Renaldi creates this work is more cumbersome 

and time-consuming than the images implicitly convey. The 

photographs are composed to look like the subjects were 

just happened upon and snapped in an instant. The 8 x 

10 Wisner camera that Renaldi sets up with the tripod is 

cumbersome and oversized, with the entire process and 

interaction sometimes taking up to ten minutes to complete. 

His subjects must be willing to then play an equal and lengthy 

part in this charged act of communication and reciprocity. 

14

15 

Mike, Laughlin, Nevada, 2004

Renaldi juxtaposes these studied, thoughtful portraits within 

a setting that is not just a backdrop, but an extension of the 

person. In a sense, thisequatesthesepeopleintheirexpressive 

vulnerabilityandfrankpresentationwiththeanxiousfeelingarising 

from an encounter with an overpowering, sublime, endless 

expanse of nature that cannot be fully known or grasped. 

In capturing the gravity and interior qualities of his subjects, 

whilepersuadinghissitterstopresentthemselves as they are, 

both artist and subject transcend the moment and medium. 

This turns the interaction into an endless foray into memory, 

narrative,adventure,fantasy,andemotion.There is no theatricality 

or grandstanding in Renaldi’s portraits. His subjects are more 

often than not, serious and contemplative, transmitting the 

factthatthisinteractionisworththetimeandgravityofpurpose. 

What you see is what you see. Except not. Whether 

it is the stillness, focus, questioning, resolve, or curiosity in 

these people, Renaldi’s portraits unfurl and draw us into their 

depths, while becoming much more than the sum of their 

surface attraction, color, depth, texture, and composition. 

What is more exciting than discovering and exploring the 

depthsofanother,atleastinthebeginningYes,wecannavigate 

through recognizable traits and emotions as we are very 

familiar with the landmarks, as they are us. It is also the 

deep unknowing within that familiarity that is so resolutely 

compelling. A mystery resides below the surface of these 

people, one that gets lost and buried in daily life, as ritualized 

tasks and the theatrics and rhythm of the everyday take 

over. What is ultimately so hypnotic about these jewel-like, 

iconic, and charismatic portraits is that, as viewers, we can 

glimpse the moment that people are opening themselves 

up to trust another in a setting that would normally be 

replete with anonymity, boundaries, and the respectful 

and welcome distance of strangers. 

16

17 

Kevin and Larry, Highway 200, North Dakota, 2006

18 

Klista, Dodge City, Kansas, 2005

19 

Tawni, Havre, Montana, 2006

20 

Sharon and Shaundeen, Highway 98, Arizona, 2004

No other medium retains this kind of transfixing power to meld 

descriptive reality with personal fantasy and supposition. It is uniquely 

photographythatridesthisridgebetweenaclarifiedrealityandamysterious 

fiction as “a different nature opens itself to the camera than opens 

to the naked eye.” 1 It is almost like there are simultaneous different 

dimensionsoftheselfalllayeredunderneathandbeyondonebeautifully 

composed and colored image. It is truly a looking glass effect, as the 

collaborationbetweenartistandsubjecthasmodifiedandtransmogrified 

what we know of as real life into something both recognizable and 

beyond the known and seen. It can now be filled with any narrative 

thread from pathos, to mystery, tedium, boredom, magic, and endless 

possibility. Thinking back to the early beginnings of photography 

when it was invented in 1839, the fact that some thought that it 

stole the souls of its subjects might not be too far off the mark 

when its full power is harnessed and put forth. Some essential part 

of these people are now out in the public realm, working on us as 

we gaze back at them. We think that we know and can connect 

with them, as well as see something of ourselves in them, when it 

is really only solvents and paper mixing in an alchemical combination. 

What indeed are we looking at and interacting with on such a deep, 

personal level when confronted with these people and images 

1 Benjamin, Walter, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” in Illuminations: trans. Harry 

Zohn (New York: 1969), 236-37: quoted in Holger Liebs, “The Same Returns: The Tradition of Documentary 

Photography,” in Veronica’s Revenge: Contemporary Perspectives on Photography, ed. Elizabeth Janus (New 

York: Scalo, 1998), 102. 

21

Each medium of art is intrinsically tied to its nature and it 

is the nature of photography to depict—in glorious detail, 

what we can and cannot see, right in front of our eyes. 

The notion of photography as an unbiased recorder of 

fact and reality has been methodically stripped away, but 

there is still the rote reality of its mechanical process that 

interacts with the motives of artist, subject, and viewer. 

Since its inception in the early 19th century, photography 

has strived to be taken seriously as a fine art form. The 

fact that it was not of the hand and was considered a very 

democratic medium made acceptance a long, hard battle. 

Painting, with its sensual surface, cult of the genius artist 

with the oversized ego and personality went hand in 

hand with established painterly pictoral conventions that 

influencedandhamstrungphotography from the beginning. 

Chiefamongthiswasthetableau, “thatindependentlybeautiful 

depiction and composition that derives from the 

institutionalization of perspective and dramatic figuration... 

it is known as a product of divine gift, high skill, deep 

emotion, and crafty planning.” 2 In its infancy, photography 

could only present its surface as what it was. It had no 

gooey, thick substance to play around with, so a reliance 

on painterly conventions to compose the picture only 

went so far. Photography, though could play its own tricks 

with the surface, utilizing the “close-up, blow-up, depth of 

field, precision of detail [to open up] spaces that previously 

existed in dreams...buthadcertainlyneverbeenconsciouslyseen, 

let alone reproduced.” 3 It could take reality, such as it was, 

and make it more so. 

2 Jeff Wall, “Marks of Indifference: Aspects of Photography in, or as, Conceptual Art,” in Veronica’s 

Revenge: Contemporary Perspectives on Photography, ed. Elizabeth Janus (New York: Scalo, 1998), 75. 

3 Holger Liebs, ”The Same Returns: The Tradition of Documentary Photography,” in Veronica’s 

Revenge: Contemporary Perspectives on Photography, ed. Elizabeth Janus, (New York, Scalo, 1998), 102. 

22

23 

Darlene, Alliance, Nebraska, 2005

Alfred, Benny, James, and Shone, Many Farms, Arizona, 2004 

24

Russell, Ricky, and Joey, Rapid City, South Dakota, 2005 

25

Renaldi’s portraits are not objective studies on the sociology 

of place or a rigid categorization of a certain subculture. They are 

highlysubjectiveandsuggestiveofrealmsofpersonalityimbuedby 

their rather stark surroundings. There is a surprising candor about 

the portraits as these strangers, enticed by the photographer, 

have opened up their lives to us for all sorts of judgments and 

emotions: aesthetic pleasure, derision, boredom, fascination, 

and quite possibly feeling nothing at all. The tension and persuasive 

quality of the images rewards repeat exploring and arises 

from being both timeless and of the moment simultaneously. 

The performative aspect of portraiture is especially compelling 

in Renaldi’s body of work as it is subtle and below the radar. 

How much control do his subjects ultimately have in crafting 

their impression—they are not professionals, primping and 

pouting for an adoring camera. They are like us, going about 

mundane routines when someone stops to take a brief interest 

in their life. How do you prepare for that moment Renaldi’s 

eye and camera captures the infinitesimal gestures and 

unconscious body language that transmits so much with so 

little. A balled or clenched fist, cocked tilt of head, or steely 

gaze all resonate on many levels. It is interesting to note that the 

more these portraits are looked at, the more that the clothing 

on Renaldi’s subjects tends to morph into costume or armor, 

masking what the face and body betray through the intense 

shared intimacy. Mass culture has us running around like 

maniacs all the time, trying and buying things to be people that 

we feel we are entitled to be in the ultimate search for the self. 

All choice aspects of culture:clothing,food,andmusicfunnelusintoa 

certain subsection and there we stay, striving to be unique within 

these anonymous materials and tools. Through the simple act 

of being aware, as well as the posing, looking, composition, 

and steady focus, Renaldi strips all this boring sameness away to 

revealnotlonging,theatre,playactingorwish-fulfillment,butenthralling, 

centered souls saying this is how it is with me and inviting us to look 

and connect on a deeper, more profound level with each other. 

26 

- Lisa Hatchadoorian, Curator

27 

Craig, Laughlin, Nevada, 2004

28 

Najiah, Denver (Denver to Los Angeles), 2005

29 

Jonathan and Lane, Wynnewood, Oklahoma, 2005

30 

John, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 2004

Checklist 

Richard Renaldi: Western Lives 

Alfred, Benny, James, 

and Shone 

Many Farms, AZ, 2004 

C-print 

21 x 25 inches 

Buba 

Havre, MT, 2006 

C-print 


Craig 

Laughlin, NV, 2004 

C-print 


Courtesy of Yossi Milo 

Gallery, NY 

Darlene 

Alliance, NE, 2005 

C-print 


Dennis 

Many Farms, AZ, 2004 

C-print 


Drew 

Hazen, ND, 2006 

C-print 


Erica 

Alliance, NE, 2005 

C-print 


Ernest 

Denver, CO, 2005 

C-print 


Jeff 

Dixie National Forest, UT, 

2004 

C-print 


John 

Albuquerque, NM, 2004 

C-print 


Jonathan and Lane, 

Wynnewood, OK, 2005 

C-print 



Gallery, NY 

Kevin and Larry 

Highway 200, ND, 2006 

C-print 


Klista 

Dodge City, KS, 2005 

C-print 



Gallery, NY 

Matt 

Fort Worth, TX, 2005 

C-print 


Mike 

Laughlin, NV, 2004 

C-print 


Najiah 

Denver (Denver to Los 

Angeles), 2005 

C-print 


Paul and Gregory 

Flagstaff, AZ, 2004 

C-print 


Russell, Ricky, and Joey 

Rapid City, SD, 2005 

C-print 


Scott 

Laramie, WY, 2005 

C-print 



Gallery, NY 

Sean Thomas 

Beulah, ND, 2006 

C-print 


Sharon and Shaundeen 

Highway 98, AZ, 2004 

C-print 


Tawni 

Havre, MT, 2006 

C-print 



Gallery, NY 

Tayla H. 

Parker, AZ, 2004 

C-print 


Terri 

Laramie, WY, 2005 

C-print 


Ty James 

Tuba City, AZ, 2004 

C-print 


Unless otherwise noted, all artworks are courtesy of the artist 

31


Selected Resumé 

Solo Exhibitions 

Yossi Milo Gallery, NY, NY. 2007 

Western Project, Los Angeles, CA. January 2005 

Debs and Co, NY, NY. 2003 Fresno/Newark 

Debs and Co, NY, NY. 2002 Project Room - Madison Avenue Portraits 

Group Exhibitions 

PowerHouse Arena , New York, NY. 2007 The Brooklynites 

The Department of Photography & Imaging, New York, NY. 2007 Transformations 

Derek Eller , New York, NY. 2007 NeoIntegrity 

Western Project, Los Angeles, CA. 2004 In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, Baby 

International Cener of Photography, NY, NY. 2003 Fall Triennial 

Yossi Milo Gallery, NY, NY. 2003 By the Sea 

The United Nations, NY, NY. 2002/2003 Pandemic AIDS 

Riva Gallery, NY, NY. 2002 Staged/Unstaged 

Gracie Mansion Gallery, NY, NY. 2000 Monster 

U.S. Conference on AIDS, Denver, CO. 1999 Housing is Healthcare 

Milton J. Weill Art Gallery, NY, NY. 1997 In Search of Promise, Immigration in America 

Feature Gallery, NY, NY. 1995 The Moderns 

Pulse Art, NY, NY. 1995 Self-Identified 

Paul Morris Gallery, NY, NY. 1995 Benefit for The Hetrick Martin Institute 

494 Gallery, NY, NY. 1994 Breakthroughs: Stonewall 

Education 

New York University, New York, NY September 1986 - May 1990 

Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography 

Salzburg College, Salzburg, Austria August 1988 - May 1989 

Awards & Grants 

Peter S Reed Foundation: Grant Awarded 2004 

Published Works 

Richard Renaldi: Figure and Ground - Aperture Fall 2006 

Art Photography Now: Susan Bright – Aperture Spring 2006 

Strangers: The First ICP Triennial of Photography and Video – Steidl 2003 

Pandemic Facing AIDS – Umbrage 2003 

32

ISBN: 978-0-9798485-0-6 

Nicolaysen Art Museum 

400 East Collins Drive 

Casper, WY 82601 USA 

www.thenic.org

Richard Renaldi - The Nicolaysen Art Museum

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