The Exalting Eye: Photography and the Myth of Santa Fe The final Through the Lens lecture

A wave of publicity during the 1980s projected Santa Fe to the world as an exotic tourist destination–America's own Tahiti in the desert. Chris Wilson's The Myth of Santa Fe goes behind the romantic adobe facades and mass marketing stereotypes to tell the fascinating but little-known story of how the city's alluring image was quite consciously created early in this century, primarily by Anglo-American newcomers.

By investigating the city's trademark architectural style, public ceremonies, the historic preservation movement, and cultural traditions, Wilson unravels the complex interactions of ethnic identity and tourist image-making. Santa Fe's is a distinctly modern success story–the story of a community that transformed itself from a declining provincial capital of 5,000 in 1912 into an internationally recognized tourist destination. But it is also a cautionary tale about the commodification of Native American and Hispanic cultures, and the social displacement and ethnic animosities that can accompany a tourist boom.

According to reviewer Martin R. Kalfatovic, Smithsonian Inst. Lib., Washington, D.C.: "Using architecture as a touchstone, Wilson outlines the architectural, historical, and cultural story of Santa Fe. He delivers a brilliant portrait of a complex and rich cultural heritage, tracing it from its Pueblo and Spanish roots, through its brief but influential Mexican period, to contributions from what he terms the American melting pot. The intricate relations between the ethnic groups that call Santa Fe home are explored in detail and with sympathy for all concerned. Wilson also offers a fascinating nutshell account of the historic preservation movement in America and how it influences the current view of Santa Fe. Through a discussion of the history of Santa Fe's annual Fiesta celebration, he shows how civic boosters have crafted a public image that bears little resemblance to historic reality."

The book won the 1997 Gaspar Perez de Villegrá Award from the Historical Society of New Mexico and the 1999 Abbott Lowell Cummings Prize from the Vernacular Architecture Forum.

Curated by photographer and educator Krista Elrick and Palace of the Governor Curator of Photography, Mary Anne Redding, Through the Lens: Creating Santa Fe, examines the history of Santa Fe through the visual record created by internationally respected photographers.

Since the 1850s many of the most recognized names in photography have focused their lenses in and on Santa Fe. Through their creative efforts they have documented a particular place and its visual history. They helped create that "place" and the mystique of Santa Fe. Photography has long been significant in the construction of notions of space and place, landscape and identity, and especially in Santa Fe, however malleable visual meaning may be, has helped define the geographical imagination.

The exhibition is on display in the Palace of the Governors until Oct. 25.