Exhibition

The Center for Creative Photography is celebrating Charles Harbutt’s photographic work, and its relationship to the printed page. The exhibition will feature a complete set of prints from Harbutt’s newest publication, Departures and Arrivals, sequenced as they appear in the book, along with a short video in which Harbutt and Joan Liftin describe the book’s creative process. In addition, work prints from Harbutt’s 1959 trip to Cuba, demonstrating how he chronicled the earliest days of Castro’s leadership, the romance of revolution, and some American responses, are paired with working materials for a planned—but never published—book. A third exploration of Harbutt’s concern for the relationship between the photographic image and the printed page relates to his long career as a photojournalist. A slide show of over 150 photographs Harbutt made on assignment will be projected in sequence, revealing their drama and power. Related clippings and tear sheets, showing how these commercial works appeared in their original magazine contexts, complement the slide show and demonstrate this photographer’s ability to work both sides of the divide between art and commerce to arrive at an original vision.

To request a tour for a class or community group of 8 or more contact Cass Fey, Curator of Education at 520.626.5211 or feyc@ccp.arizona.edu

Anticipating Digital features the prescient work of Center for Creative Photography archive artist Todd Walker (1917-1998). The exhibition examines three decades of Walker’s work, highlighting his early use of computers to digitize images, and features examples of Walker’s use of alternate printing methods including offset lithos, silkscreens, Collotypes, self-published artist books and portfolios.

Todd Walker was one of the first photographers to embrace and make artistic use of digital imaging technologies. In 1981, long before digital imaging was defined as a collection of visual devices, tools, and practices, Walker had purchased an Apple II computer and was writing software in Basic to digitize, modify, and output his photographs into a panoply of print media. During the two decades that Walker followed his digital muse, countless industrial and desktop applications of press-ready digital imaging mushroomed around us. Todd Walker, ever the pathfinder, pursued his own vision of what the medium of digital photography might become. Like the views recorded by early explorers of a continent, Walker’s digital work discloses a few sights that have since become familiar, far more that remain rare and unknown still, and several that have been absorbed into the ruling taste of commercial software. Seeing his work of the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s gathered together in its original context reaffirms the role of the artist as innovator, and makes clear Walker’s remarkable journey.

The exhibition will open on Friday, March 29 from 4:30 to 5:30pm for a special preview before the lecture "Lola Alvarez Bravo, Rethinking the Archive."

Lola Alvarez Bravo and the Photography of an Era sheds new light on one of Mexico’s most important photographers. Originally organized by the Diego Rivera Studio Museum in Mexico City, this traveling exhibition presents a selection of fine prints from the González Rendón Archive, a recently discovered body of materials that encompass the long arc of Lola’s career. For its installation at the Center for Creative Photography, guest curators Rachael Arauz and Adriana Zavala have also chosen a group of works from the CCP’s own archive of Lola Alvarez Bravo photographs. Featuring both iconic and lesser-known images, as well as photographs by her former husband Manuel Alvarez Bravo, and by her students, the joint presentation of these two archives will inspire fresh insights into this fascinating photographer’s rich contributions to modern art.

Perhaps no photographer's work has enjoyed such popularity as Ansel Adams's awe-inspiring views of the natural world. His early trips to the Yosemite wilderness in the 1910s, 1920s and 1930s informed the stylistic approach that made him famous. These treks included not only the physical activities of hiking, camping, and mountain climbing, but also social, intellectual, cultural, and spiritual elements. With forty photographs and supporting documents from the Ansel Adams Archive, Ansel Adams: The View from Here explores the relationship between Adams's magical photographs of the American landscape---both its panoramic vistas and its intimate details---and how he came to understand the importance of his natural environment.

Over the course of a decade and across 32 states, photographer and digital artist, Stephen Marc, followed the Underground Railroad, the network of people and places that served as a gateway to freedom during slavery in the American South, creating compelling and visually expansive digital documentary montages based on their journeys.