albradenphoto's blog

The International Cultural Center at Texas Tech University in Lubbock hosts an annual photographic exhibit exploring the lands and people of arid and semiarid regions. These include much of Texas, the Southwest and northern Mexico. This year’s exhibit was jurored by Roy Flukinger, Senior Research Curator at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin. The Center is one of the leading photographic research facilities worldwide and – among many collections and archives – it has the Helmut and Alison Gerhsheim Collection and the First Photograph ever made.

Flukinger has been a curator at the Harry Ransom Center since 1977 – allowing him to work extensively with the Gernsheim Collection for a longer period than the collectors themselves. The resulting catalog of the current exhibition, Flukinger’s The Gernsheim Collection, published by UT Press in October does, in fact, weigh more than my new grandson Andrew. It represents a lifetime of study by Flukinger, demonstrating the depth of materials carefully collected by the Gernsheims from the 1940′s into the 1960′s as they researched and documented the history of photography.

For this eleventh annual High and Dry Exhibit, Flukinger selected, my triptych, Border Fence and Ditches, Fabens, TX. It is part of a portfolio of 15 triptychs showing the border at El Paso and Cd. Juarez. The entire portfolio is show on my website at albradenphoto.com/portfolios/rio_grande.php

Border Fence and Ditches, Fabens, TX

These triptychs are part of a large and ongoing project to photograph the Rio Grande / Rio Bravo in its entirety. Works from this series have been exhibited this year at the People’s Gallery, City Hall, Austin; the Texas Photographic Society Member’s Show, Baylor University, Waco; the Texas National 2010 Exhibit, Stephen F. Austin University, Nacogdoches; the Houston Center for Photography Member’s Show, Houston; and the Texas Photographic Society International Exhibit at the A. Smith Gallery in Johnson City. Additional images from the Rio Grande / Rio Bravo project are at: albraden.photoshelter.com/gallery-list

The exhibit at Texas Tech University will include a reception on Friday, December 10, 2010 with Roy Flukinger.

Saturday, October 23rd saw the opening of Texas Photographic Society’s 19th International Photographic Exhibition. Hosted by Amanda Smith, of the A. Smith Gallery in Johnson City, Texas. Her gallery is part of an emerging art scene in this destination Hill Country town.

Amanda Smith, left, greets visitors to her gallery in Johnson City, Texas.

The exhibit was curated by Katherine Ware, Curator of the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe. She selected the show from over 1,200 works submitted by 184 photographers. Texas Photographic Society has 1223 members – at last count – from 48 states and nine countries. Headquartered in San Antonio, it mounts major exhibits during the year and has an extensive list of seminars held each fall in Austin covering many topics in photography. For more information, go to www.texasphoto.org.

Two of my El Paso Border Triptychs were selected for the show and awarded Third Prize. The include Border Fence and Ditches, Fabens, TX and Boundary of New Mexico, Texas and Chihuahua. Works from this portfolio have been exhibited this year at The People’s Gallery, City Hall, Austin, TX; The Texas National 2010 Exhibit at Stephen F. Austin University, Nacogdoches, TX; Houston Center for Photography, Houston, TX; The Texas Photographic Society Member’s Show, Baylor University, Waco, TX; The High and Dry Show; Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX and were awarded the Emerging Artist Award of the Texas Photographic Society in July of 2010.

The full series of 15 triptychs on the border fence at El Paso/Cd. Juarez is part of a larger project entitled Rio Grande / Rio Bravo / Rio Conflict examining the historic and ongoing conflicts around this iconic river of the Southwest.

Al Braden in front of 3rd Prize triptychs on The Border at El Paso/Cd. Juarez.

The entire portfolio can be seen at my website: www.albradenphoto.com/portfolios/rio_grande.php

A. Smith Gallery in the Hill Country at Johnson City, Texas.