June and July 2012 at the Center for Creative Photography

June / July 2012

Center for Creative Photography | FOCAL POINT

1030 North Olive Road, Tucson, Arizona, 85721 • (520) 621-7968 • www.creativephotography.org

Aaron Siskind, Terrors & Pleasures of Levitation, No. 99, 1961. Aaron Siskind Archive, Center for Creative Photography. © The Aaron Siskind Foundation.

Letter from the Director

Hot air has moved in and the mass of students have moved out for the summer. In the quiet of this time of year, the staff at the Center continues to work hard on behind the scenes activities. Here are some highlights from the year and an insider’s look into our big projects:

Communications
One of the Center’s highest priorities is to continually improve our communications efforts. We are putting the finishing touches on a redesigned website to be launched later this summer, we redesigned the monthly newsletter (formerly known as On Center and now renamed Focal Point), and we are promoting our exhibitions and Photo Friday print viewings to our local audiences with the help of Arizona Public Media.

Exhibitions
A major milestone was the return of the travelling exhibition, New Topographics, after its year-long national and four-year international tour. Former CCP Director, Britt Salvesen, and Alison Nordstrom, Curator of Photographs at the George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film, curated the exhibition, with funding from the Terra Foundation for American Art. 382,870 viewers saw this five-year, nine-venue exhibition. We are thrilled to have partnered with the Eastman House to create such an important contribution to the field.

The Center was also the chief lender for several exhibitions, including W. Eugene Smith: More Real than Reality, PhotoEspana, Madrid, Spain, and a three-year tour in Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, and Germany; The Jazz Loft Project: Photographs and Tapes of W. Eugene Smith, Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, CA, after a two-year tour in the U.S.; John Gutmann: The Photographer at Work, Sala Rekalde, Bilbao, Spain, after a two-year tour in Spain; W. Eugene Smith: Pittsburgh, l’impossible labyrinthe (1955-1958), Pavillon Populaire Museum, Montpellier, France; and Ansel Adams: At the Water's Edge, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA, and National Maritime Museum, London, England.

Laura Volkerding Study Center
The newly expanded Laura Volkerding Study Center is packed for the summer with researchers. We have a first look at several exciting book and exhibition projects that are underway across the country. Stay tuned for more details!

New Collections Management System
Museum colleagues around the world will understand when I say we are thrilled to begin using a new collection management system, TMS, from Gallery Systems, Inc. There are lots of smiling faces here at the Center this week now that the new system is launched!

Stay tuned for announcements regarding the new Arthur J. Bell Senior Photograph Conservator and the new Chief Curator by the end of the summer.

Katharine Martinez, Director
martinezk@ccp.library.arizona.edu

CCP News

The parking lot behind CCP is closed from June 12 to August 10 due to construction of the new streetcar line on 2nd Street.

The gallery is closed from June 18 to August 17 due to maintenance.

Photo Friday resumes September 7, 2012, from 11:30am to 3:30pm.

Joan Murray, Robert Heinecken in California, 1972. Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona.

Current Exhibitions at CCP
*Closing this weekend, last chance to visit!

Speaking in Tongues:
Wallace Berman and Robert Heinecken, 1961-1976
March 27, 2012 - June 17, 2012
CCP Gallery, Free Admission

Speaking in Tongues: Wallace Berman and Robert Heinecken, 1961-1976 brings two seminal yet under-studied Los Angeles artists into close conversation with one another for the first time. The archive of Robert Heinecken resides at the Center for Creative Photography and this is the first major exhibition of his work to be shown at the Center. Organized by the curatorial team of Claudia Bohn-Spector and Sam Mellon, with supporting research by Carolyn Peter, this exhibition examines how these two artists bridged modernist and emerging post-modernist trends by ushering in the use of photography as a key element of contemporary avant-garde art. Focusing on language and the creation of new visual codes, as well as on the little-known friendship between Berman and Heinecken, their works are explored within the unique cultural milieu of 1960s and 1970s Southern California, as it fueled and amplified each artist’s highly original approach to making images.

This exhibition contains graphic nudity and imagery that may not be appropriate for all audiences; viewer discretion advised.

LA Photographies:

Permanent Collection Exhibition
March 27, 2012 – June 17, 2012
CCP Gallery, Free Admission

Curated by River Bullock, the Center's 2011-2012 Ansel Adams Intern, and presented in conjunction with Speaking in Tongues, this group of works from the Center’s collection illustrates Los Angeles photography from the 1890s-1990s, including photographs by William Henry Jackson, Margrethe Mather, Garry Winogrand, and Catherine Opie.

Current CCP Exhibition at the Phoenix Art Museum
*Closing this weekend, last chance to visit!

W. Eugene Smith
March 10, 2012 – June 17, 2012
Norton Photography Gallery, Phoenix Art Museum

W. Eugene Smith (1918-1978), a compassionate and intense photojournalist, was tremendously prolific from the Second World War through the midpoint of the 20th century. He produced a series of essays for Life magazine that made an impact on American culture then and have continued to be poignant testaments from this period of rich cultural transition. The power of the photographs and the success of his essays were a result of Smith’s intimate involvement with his subjects.

This exhibit draws on the Center for Creative Photography’s W. Eugene Smith archive to illustrate some of his groundbreaking essays, including coverage of the WWII Pacific Ocean theatre and post-war stories such as Country Doctor (1948), Spanish Village (1951), and Nurse Midwife (1951). In addition to fine prints, copies of vintage Life magazines will be on view, along with Smith’s own contact sheets, hand-written notes, correspondence, and other personal documents.

Upcoming Exhibition at CCP
Made in Arizona: Photographs from the Collection
August 18, 2012 - November 25, 2012
CCP Gallery, Free Admission

To celebrate the Arizona Centennial, the Center for Creative Photography will present an exhibition that encompasses a range of subjects and genres highlighting the diverse photographs produced in Arizona and the rich breadth of the Center’s fine print collection.

Upcoming Event at CCP
Alice Sachs Zimet: So You Want to Collect Photography? Basics for the Beginner
August 23, 2012, 5:30pm
CCP Auditorium, Free Admission

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.

Upcoming Exhibition at the Phoenix Art Museum
Stephen Marc: Passage on the Underground Railroad
June 22 - September 23, 2012
Norton Photography Gallery

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.

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