Special Events

Following Jo Ann Callis's September 18 artist talk at the Center, please join us in celebrating our current exhibition, Performance: Contemporary Photography from the Douglas Nielsen Collection. Promising to be a truly unique event for the Center with food, drink, and a few surprises throughout the night! Free and open to the public.

Artists from Latin America have long embraced photography as a means to capture their surroundings, document social injustice and political upheaval, and create images of national identity. In this lecture, Dr. Davidson will explore photographs with potent political undertones that convey a sense of place that is crucial to their meanings. She will provide an historical overview of the development of photographic practices in Latin America, and will also touch upon the main themes of the recent Phoenix Art Museum exhibition, The Politics of Place: Latin American Photography, Past and Present. 

Dr. Davidson holds a Ph.D. in the History of 20th Century and Contemporary Latin American Art, and has held her current post, Shawn and Joe Lampe Associate Curator of Latin American Art at the Phoenix Art Museum, since October, 2011.

A screening of Different Drummers. This film follows several Israeli peacemakers who provoke others to join their voices for peace and justice. Considered heroes by some and traitors by others, these individuals struggle daily in what seems to the Western world, a half-century conflict impossible to resolve. Well-known Palestinians briefly respond to their concerns. The American media have portrayed Israel as a country scarred by the violence of suicide bombers, demolitions, and collective punishment. The human rights issues, however, appear to fade into the background. Despite the atmosphere of "terror" that hovers over both Palestine and Israel, there are Israeli voices heard over the din that cry out for a just and lasting peace. (2003; 51 minutes).

The film will be introduced by producer A.D. Chandler and Dr. Leonard Hammer will answer questions following the presentation.

Dr. Hammer is the David and Andrea Stein Visiting Professor of Modern Israel Studies at the University of Arizona. He is an adjunct professor at The Hebrew University’s Rothberg School, serves as the Academic Director to Shurat HaDin, and works as an International Expert for the Open Society Institute. Hammer’s research focuses on international law and human rights. His most recent publication Sacred Space in Israel and Palestine: Religion and Politics is a co-edited book and will appear in bookstores in 2012.

This film is co-presented by the Honors College and the Center for Creative Photography as part of the 2012-2013 Honors College reading theme: Human Rights: Beyond Borders.

Photo Fridays offer an exclusive themed selection from the Center’s renowned collection of photographs—unframed for close inspection in the second floor viewing room—every month. The theme for October 5 will be Signs and Symbols.  Signs and symbols inhabit our daily lives as well as our memories. They are images, marks, and representations that evoke emotional responses while informing and recalling our existence. This viewing presents work by Lee Friedlander, Robert Frank, Carrie Mae Weems, Charles Harbutt, Ann Parker, Kozo Miyoshi, Ralph Gibson, Marion Palfi, W.Eugene Smith, Aaron Siskind and Jeffrey Wolin.

Groundbreaking American photojournalist Danny Lyon has been the subject of over fifty solo exhibitions, including retrospective exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art (2007-8), The Menil Collection (2012), and currently at the Etherton Gallery in downtown Tucson, AZ. His work is collected by museums in the United States and Europe. Lyon is also an accomplished documentary filmmaker with more than a dozen films to his credit.

Murderers

On Friday, October 5, 2012, at 6:00 p.m., Lyon will screen his film, Murderers at the Center for Creative Photography. Murderers is a 30-minute documentary film about five murderers in three states, New York, Arkansas, and New Mexico.

Jeff Kida, Photography Editor at Arizona Highways magazine, will share photographs from the popular publication.

Arizona’s Grand Canyon—natural wonder, sacred land, national park, tourist attraction—is perhaps the world’s best “photo op.”  Hearing the name brings to mind vividly colored, striated rock, the earth dropping away to the Canyon’s invisible depths. But what is the source of the image that springs into our imagination? Is it a nineteenth century survey drawing of the Canyon’s horizontal sweep? Or the black-and-white photographs Ansel Adams made in the 1940s? Perhaps it is the anonymous color postcard picked up at a souvenir stand, or a snapshot from a family vacation?

In 2007, photographers Mark Klett and Byron Wolfe headed to the Grand Canyon to grapple with the many image-makers who had visited the site before. Klett, a Regents Professor at Arizona State University, and Wolfe, a former student of Klett’s who is now a Lantis’ University Professor at California State University at Chico, began rephotographing historic images together in 1997, dramatically expanding their interpretation of rephotography. They analyzed the work of eight practitioners as well as that of numerous anonymous photographers. During summer field work at the Grand Canyon, they identified the exact locations portrayed in historic photographs and drawings. From those geographic points they created new photographs that incorporate the original view. Digital versions of the historic images are inserted within the contemporary photograph, creating sweeping panoramas that convey the big picture surrounding earlier artists’ depicted views.

Norton Family Curator Rebecca Senf will lead Klett and Wolfe in a discussion of their working process, their recent Grand Canyon project and book, and what’s on their horizon. The conversation will be followed by an opportunity to purchase the new book “Reconstructing the View: The Grand Canyon Photographs of Mark Klett and Byron Wolfe.”

Artist's talk and book signing by Richard Misrach. In the 1970s, exhibiting artist Richard Misrach helped pioneer the renaissance of color photography and large-scale presentation that are widespread practice today. Best known for his ongoing epic series, Desert Cantos, a multi-faceted approach to the study of place and man’s complex relation to it, he has worked in the landscape for over 40 years. Recent projects include: Golden Gate, Richard Misrach, Aperture, Spring 2012; Petrochemical America, Richard Misrach and Kate Orff, Aperture, Fall 2012; Destroy This Memory, Richard Misrach, Aperture, Fall 2010; and 1991, Richard Misrach, Blind Spot, Fall 2011. Misrach’s photographs are held in the collections of over fifty major institutions, including the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Alice Sachs Zimet, President, Arts + Business Partners (New York City), is a long time collector of fine art photography. She is a member of the Collections Committee of the Harvard Art Museums, the Board of the Magnum Foundation, and the International Center of Photography's Acquisitions Committee. She will present on the basics of photography collection.