Exhibitions

In Pictures for Charis, American photographer Kelli Connell reconsiders the relationship between writer Charis (pronounced CARE-iss) Wilson and photographer Edward Weston through a close examination of Wilson’s prose and Weston’s iconic photographs. 

Chicana Photographers LA! will be exhibited alongside Louis Carlos Bernal: Retrospectiva, highlighting artists inspired by Bernal's legacy, focusing on Chicanx culture, identity, and the impact of gentrification on communities through a visual exploration of neighborhoods, families, and sacred spaces.

Louis Carlos Bernal: Retrospectiva presents some 125 photographs by the pioneering Chicanx photographer active in the 1970s and 1980s, focusing on his moving portrayals of Mexican American people living in the barrios of Tucson and throughout the Southwest.

The Place Where Clouds Are Formed is an interdisciplinary arts collective that examines the intersection of spirituality, migration, and current and historical policies that have impacted the borderlands of the Sonoran Desert.

Step into the captivating world of Contemporary Korean society, where tradition meets rapid modernization and Western influence. Wonders and Witness: Contemporary Photography from Korea is an exhibition that invites you to explore the diverse facets of Korean life- its desires, anxieties, frustrations, and mysteries.

Drawn from five series: World War II, Nurse Midwife, Jazz Loft, Hitachi Corporation, and Minamata, W. Eugene Smith’s work will be presented with archival material that helps expand consideration of his practice beyond an art historical lens, connecting his photographs to other fields and disciplines.

Richard Avedon: Relationships, envisioned by Chief Curator Rebecca Senf for the Tucson galleries of the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona in 2018, has been expanded and will go on view in Palermo, Italy starting this April.

Fashioning Self: The Photography of Everyday Expression examines the role of photography in shaping, sharing, and shifting identity.

Mural-scale digital projections rotating photographs of the southwestern United States from CCP’s collection hypnotically tangle with a chance array of music and sound. 8-Track will also be stage to a curated schedule of live, in-gallery performances by regional musicians, commissioned to perform work inspired by CCP’s collection of photography.

Sessions on Creative Photography is one comprehensive look at the boundary-breaking career of Hazel Larsen Archer, from her instrumental work in photography within mid century avant-garde art circles to her transformative approach to photo education.

Curated by members of the photographer’s family, this exhibition covers Linda McCartney’s whole career, from 1965 to 1997. The range of works in the exhibition, including never-before-seen Tucson views, reflect the spontaneity and ease of her photographic style. 

Why Color? is the first class residency piloted by the Center for Creative Photography + Art & Visual Culture Education in the School of Art. Simultaneously a classroom and installation, the project launches in early September inviting University of Arizona graduate students in the course “Participatory Practices and Edu-Curation in Exhibitions” to design an exhibition from CCP’s collection of color photography.

And Let it Remain So: Women of the African Diaspora brings together the work of five photographers who explore their experiences of the African Diaspora and its influence on their understandings of identity, community, place, and displacement. 

Tucson-based photographer Alanna Airitam’s photographic project, “The Golden Age” celebrates a vision of Black Americans that is uplifting, inspiring, and empowering. In ten luscious and elegant large-scale portraits the artist features contemporary African American people as symbolic saints who are simultaneously magnificent and powerful. 

From February 5-July 22, 2022, the Center for Creative Photography (CCP) and the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research (LTRR) will stage installations together that follow historical, cultural, and scientific narratives inspired by trees.

Over the last four years, the Center for Creative Photography analyzed our collections, determined strengths, and identified gaps in representation. The Center is committed to growing the collection to include previously underrepresented artists, and through three auctions of duplicate holdings in the collection, the CCP has funded an endowment to purchase work to diversify the collection. Trios: Looking Close at Three New Acquisitions serves as our first opportunity to share new works funded by the endowment with our community. Designed to be an evolving exhibition, we will rotate works in February and March, sharing three new prints each time. 

Community art project displayed at the Bryant Bannister Tree-Ring Building from January 31, 2022 to July 22, 2022.

In 1988 and 1990, with support from two major grants from the Hitachi Corporation, the CCP made a historic acquisition of 87 works by nineteen contemporary Japanese experimental photographers. Farewell Photography brings together all 87 prints for display for the first time since they were acquired.

Photojournalism and now citizen photojournalism, too, are forces in shaping public opinion, discourse, policy and history. That’s why we are purposely conducting a study of photojournalism at this—our—historical junction in 2020.

This retrospective exhibition will survey the career of Marion Palfi (1907–1978), who produced one of the most important visual documents of American injustice of the twentieth century.