FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
SUBJECT: UNDER A DRY MOON, PHOTOGRAPHS BY MICHAEL P. BERMAN
DATE: AUGUST 24, 2007
CONTACT: DR. CYNTHIA ANN BETTISON, WNMU MUSEUM DIRECTOR & ARCHAEOLOGIST, OR PHILLIP CAVE, ACTING MUSEUM SERVICES MANAGER, 505-538-6386, www.wnmu.edu/univ/museum.htm, bettisonc@wnmu.edu, cavep@wnmu.edu
The exhibition Under a Dry Moon, Photographs of Michael P. Berman opens at Western New Mexico University Museum on Thursday, September 13, 2007 from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. in the Museum’s 2nd floor Short-term Exhibition Room. The opening reception includes a gallery talk by Michael Berman at 4:30 p.m. followed by a book signing.
Under a Dry Moon features Berman’s photographs of the Gran Desierto, seven thousand square miles of desert straddling the U.S.-Mexican border between southwestern Arizona and northwestern Sonora. “Sand dunes and a shield volcano rise out of the Sea of Cortez and float into open basins and thin granite ranges,” states Berman, and his images capture the stark beauty of this relatively uninhabited area.
Berman is attracted to empty spaces, like the Gran Desierto, where he walks and photographs, “I have always loved maps, and I sought out the empty spaces—the places between the roads to wander. I suppose that's why I ended up on the border...not too many people sleep here...it is still a bit wild. There is an innate connection between art and the land. Both require a perception of complexity beyond rational interpretation or we are left looking at the surface.”
Berman’s work is firmly rooted in both the contemporary and the classical traditions. His classically executed black-and-white photographs participate in and extend the romantic tradition of western landscape photography. He avoids the spectacular, however, in favor of small and unnoticed scenes or vast empty views. The photographs reveal both the complexity and abstraction of nature, while the installations seek to find a place for man within it.
Berman says, “I am not concerned with fashioning something new...rather I am obsessed with retrieving something lost. I walk in the land...sometimes I make photographs. I use the images in installations, objects, and paintings. Eventually we discard everything...and then discover it again.”
For more than seven years, from 1996 to 2004, Berman photographed El Gran Desierto. In 2000, the Southwest Center at the University of Arizona awarded him a three year fellowship to continue photographing the area. Many of his photographs from this large body of work were published in two, very complementary books, Sunshot: Peril and Wonder in the Gran Desierto authored by naturalist Bill Broyles, and Inferno, written by Charles Bowden. A limited number of the two books will be available for purchase at the WNMU Museum Shop, and a book signing will be held at the exhibition opening reception after the gallery talk.
Michael Berman’s work has been exhibited throughout the U.S. and is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, and the Museum of New Mexico. He has received fellowships from both the Wurlitzer Foundation and the Arizona Commission of the Arts.
Berman was born in New York City, moving to Colorado Springs to attend Colorado College where he studied biology. Finding that science afforded too little time to wander, he later studied photography and earned an MFA at Arizona State University in Tempe. Fifteen years ago he settled in southwestern New Mexico where he now lives in the Mimbres Valley. Berman’s work is available locally in Silver City at Blue Dome Gallery. His work is also available at Scheinbaum & Russek in Santa Fe, NM, Etherton Gallery in Tucson, AZ, Joseph Bellows Gallery in La Jolla, CA, and Galleri Urbane in Marfa and Stephen L. Clark Gallery in Austin, TX.
Under a Dry Moon, Photographs by Michael P. Berman is WNMU Museum’s first exhibition after completion of phase I of the Revitalizing History Project. For more information on the exhibition opening of Under a Dry Moon contact Phillip Cave, Acting WNMU Museum Services Manager, at 505-538-6386 or cavep@wnmu.edu.
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Pictured is a black and white photo titled “Crossings.” The photo is one of the many outstanding pieces featured in the exhibit “Under a Dry Moon, Photographs of Michael P. Berman,” which opens at the WNMU Museum on Thursday, Sept. 13.
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