The Center for Creative Photography is an archive and research center located on the University of Arizona campus. We retain the archives of Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Garry Winogrand, Harry Callahan, and other great 20th century photographers—over fifty archives in all.
Current Exhibition
Lee Friedlander: American Monuments
May 17, 2008 — August 3, 2008
The theme of "the American monument" pervades Lee Friedlander’s lifelong investigation of the social landscape. In Friedlander’s photographs, statues, obelisks, and plaques play physical and symbolic roles, pointing to a commemorative impulse and collective sense of history. Nestled within compositions that also include cars, tourists, power lines, and other signs of contemporary life, they also suggest the accommodation of the past within the present. This exhibition features selections from the Center for Creative Photography’s collection of Friedlander’s American Monument series, which he first published in 1976 and continues to expand today. Selective comparisons, by artists such as Eugène Atget, Walker Evans, and Garry Winogrand, suggest points of departure for Friedlander’s unique exploration of a rich and inexhaustible theme.
Watch Examining national identity at Center for Creative Photography, a short video courtesy of Arizona Public Media.
Image Credit:
© Lee Friedlander, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, 1974