Events
All events are free and open to the public
The Edge of Vision: Abstraction in Contemporary Photography
September 4 – November 28, 2010
The Edge of Vision: Abstraction in Contemporary Photography showcases the work of more than twenty photographers who base their practice in some form of abstraction. The exhibition explores various aspects of the photographic experience, including the chemistry of traditional photography, the mediation of lenses, the direct capture of light without a camera, digital sampling of found images, radical cropping, and deliberate destabilizations of photographic reference..
Reception and Curator's Lecture
Friday, September 10; lecture at 5 p.m., reception at 6 p.m.
Lyle Rexer, an independent scholar, curator, and educator, writes for many publications, including Parkett, Tate, and Photograph, and is the author of The Edge of Vision. He teaches at the School of Visual Arts in New York.
Artist's Talk
Thursday, October 14, 5:30 p.m.
Exhibiting artist Chris McCaw will discuss his work, including his project Sunburned, which deliberately exposes photographic paper to light over long periods to encourage burning. McCaw lives and works in San Francisco, exhibits widely, and is represented in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Artist's Talk
Thursday, November 4, 5:30 p.m.
Exhibiting artist Barbara Kasten will discuss her work, which explores the interplay between light and form. Kasten teaches photography at Columbia College, Chicago, exhibits internationally, and is represented in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Other Events
Artist’s Talk: Luis Gonzalez Palma
Sunday, September 12, 2:00 p.m.
This lecture is being held at CCP in conjunction with an exhibition of Guatemalan photographer Luis Gonzalez Palma’s hand-colored gelatin silver photographs on view at Etherton Gallery, 135 S. 6th Avenue, opening September 7 and showing through November 6. Palma’s images, which are part of a larger Etherton Gallery exhibition entitled, Ojos bien abiertos/Eyes Wide Open, challenge the cultural myths and historical understanding that have conditioned our appraisal of Latin America. His new work features portraits of young women with bleached, riveting eyes. The series, inspired by Portuguese poet, Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935), articulates Palma’s belief that, “when we see, we do not see what we see, we see who we are.”
Etherton Gallery will host a reception Saturday, September 11, 7-10 p.m. at the gallery. Luis Gonzalez Palma, who lives in Argentina, is traveling to Tucson in one of his few trips to the United States this year, to attend the reception and to speak here at the Center.
Artists’ Talk and Book Signing: The State of Ata: the contested imagery of power in Turkey
Thursday, October 7, 5:30 p.m.
(Co-sponsored by the University of Arizona Center for Middle Eastern Studies)
Photographers Chantal Zakari and Mike Mandel will present a lecture on their new artists' book, which examines the visual imagery of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk inTurkish culture. Zakari and Mandel, one American, the other Turkish, employed the imagery of Atatürk to create a portrait of the body politic: the symbol of the secular revolutionary hero, the power of the state that resides with the military, and in opposition, the demands for renewed religious political expression symbolized by the Islamist scarf.
www.TheStateofAta.infoCenter News
Center for Creative Photography Announces New Director
Katharine Martinez has been appointed the UA's Center for Creative Photography director. Her position became effective in July.
Martinez, former director of the
Fine Arts Library in the Harvard College Library located in Massachusetts, has broad experience in museums and research libraries. She has managed photographic collections at Harvard University, Stanford University, Columbia University, the Smithsonian Institution and the Winterthur Library.
“Martinez’s appointment represents a shift in the institution’s oversight. We sought a director who will build upon the center’s recent accomplishments and raise the institution to a new level," said Carla Stoffle, dean of UA Libraries and the Center for Creative Photography.
Stoffle served as interim director after the former director and chief curator, Britt Salvesen, left the UA during the fall for a position at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Martinez is slated to take over the directorship July 12.
"We expect she will work closely with the center’s senior curator as well as other talented members of our staff when it comes to matters of acquisitions and exhibitions,” Stoffle said.
Since 1998, Martinez has served at Harvard University, overseeing a collection of more than 1.5 million photographs and prints.
Also serving as the Herman and Joan Suit Librarian, Martinez has had oversight of the Harvard Film Archive, with its collection of more than 10,000 35mm and 16mm films and several thousand posters along with a robust public film program.
She has extensive experience and accomplishments in strategic planning and organizational development, budget management, fundraising, outreach, collection development and management and preservation.
Additionally, Martinez has worked to improve access to information, and is noted to have strengths in working in collaborative environments across a range of disciplines.
“We expect that when members of the photographic community get to know Katharine Martinez, they will be impressed by her wide-ranging experiences and her capable leadership skills,” said David Knaus, who co-chairs the UA center's Board of Fellows.
Martinez has curated exhibitions for the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, earned fellowships from Harvard University Library and Stanford University Library, served on the editorial board for American Quarterly and acted as a member of the Board of Directors of Research Libraries Group, RLG. She also is a past-president of the Art Libraries Society of North America
In 1972, Martinez earned a bachelor's degree in art history from the University of Delaware. She went on to earn a Master of Library Science degree in library science from Indiana University in 1975. She earned a doctorate in American studies from George Washington University in 1986.
In 1990, she took a position as adjunct professor in the University of Delaware Art History Department, serving through 1993. While there, she directed theses and taught a graduate seminar using materials from the Winterthur Library’s special collections.
Her areas of expertise are 19th and early 20th century visual culture, particularly the intersection of high art and popular taste and the reception of images. Also, Martinez has presented papers at scholarly conferences, published in juried periodicals and monographs and has edited volumes for publication.
She is currently at work on a book manuscript titled "Craze for Pictures: The Production and Reception of Photographic Images in the U.S. 1880–1920."
John P. Schaefer, the center’s co-founder, said he was "delighted" that Martinez was appointed.
"Katharine Martinez clearly understands what a complex institution like the center requires," Schaefer said. "She will be able to deliver a clear picture of the center’s preeminent position as a photographic archive, research center, and museum, and provide greater access to our unique assets.”
Phoenix Art Museum director Jim K. Ballinger, who has overseen a new collaboration between his institution and the Center for Creative Photography during the last four years, also remarked on the hire.
“That Katharine Martinez will bring her broad and interdisciplinary perspective of American Studies and material culture to the CCP is a valuable contribution," Ballinger said. "This expansive approach to the history of photography allows her to see the center’s collection with new appreciation, opening up even greater opportunities.”
