Imagine you’re invited to a party, a picture perfect 50-year celebration where more than 100 iconic images and unseen archives are on display and a world of inspiration and creativity is surrounding you.
That’s the idea behind the University of Arizona Center for Creative Photography’s “Picture Party: Celebrating the Collection at 50.”
The work of renowned photographers and up-and-coming artists is being brought together to celebrate 50 years of creative photography with the launch of a new exhibition.
Works will be on display at the Alice Chaiten Baker Interdisciplinary Gallery near the Tucson Museum of Art Downtown, 166 W. Alameda St., from May 3 until Dec. 20; the gallery is open from 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays.
Charlie Snyder, the director of PR, marketing and communications for the College of Fine Arts, said visitors can expect to see works by photography icon Ansel Adams, who was one of the center’s founders, and others including Harry Callahan, Tseng Kwong Chi, Imogen Cunningham, Roy DeCarava, Robert Heinecken, Graciela Iturbide, Susan Meiselas, Minor White and Carrie Mae Weems.
Visitors can also expect to see work by emerging artists that will spark new perspectives.
The center’s Director Todd Tubutis said that people who frequent the center and are familiar with its collections can expect to see some of the same names and pictures, but “there’s going to be a lot there that they probably have never seen because they’re new acquisitions that just haven’t been put on the wall yet.”
The goal of the exhibit is to pull people away from the chronological, thematic structure and give a more open minded perspective to the way things can be pictured, organizers said.
“We had this monumental task to try and create an exhibition from this huge collection,” said Chief Curator Becky Senf. “We have over 300 archives and 120,000 prints in our research collection and from that we had to create an exhibition of about 100 things that could represent what we are and what the collection is.”
The exhibit consists of three different “parties”; think of the curator as the party host and the artworks as the guests.
The first party is a smaller group of artworks – think double date or catching up with an old friend. There will be text to go with the prints and archival pieces to give less room for guessing and more room for just diving into the depth of the piece.
Senf referred to the second as a dinner party where a conversation might flow along a trend or there might be multiple conversations going on at the same time. This leaves room for the imagination to flow and for viewers to make connections different from the obvious.
The final party is toward the back of the gallery and could be referred to as the cocktail party; there is a big wall of artwork that leaves room for endless imagination and creativity.
Two dodging tools created by Ansel Adams.
A focal point in the exhibition is the use of archival objects including darkroom tools created by Adams, Eugene Smith and Laura Volkerding. The tools work the same but are different in how they were made during a time when photographers had to make it for themselves.
Pulitzer Prize- winning war photographer David Hume Kennerly’s helmet that he wore while he covered the Vietnam War is among the archival pieces that include Lola Álvarez Bravo’s sunglasses, Edward Weston’s wedding ring, W. Eugene Smith’s fingerprints and Southworth and Hawes daguerreotype.
“Archives are made up of things that individuals have chosen to save in the past,” said Emily Weirich, CCP’s associate archivist and public services manager. “We as collection stewards have a role in what ends up here eventually, but we don’t have the option to have things that weren’t saved.”
The iconic photographer and CCP cofounder Adams is a popular draw for the Center for Creative Photography. When he helped launch the center, he gave it his archives and personal collections. His works are included in the exhibition.
“It is both about the early moments of photography and the early moments of the Center for Creative Photography,” Senf said.
David Hume Kennerly’s helmet that he wore while covering the Vietnam War.
“There’s no institution like the center anywhere else in the United States, possibly North America, “said Todd Tubutis, the center’s director. “The University of Arizona is extremely fortunate to have this archive, this institution that serves people all around the world, right here in Tucson.”
The Center for Creative Photography has the privilege of showing a small portion of their collection in this exhibition but they have their full collection available to you upon appointment just visit ccp.arizona.edu
Arizona Sonoran News is a news service of the University of Arizona School of Journalism.
