about
MICHAEL P. BERMAN
2008 Guggenheim Fellow Photographer
Michael Berman has spent almost thirty years photographing the arid border regions of the American Southwest. A resident of New Mexico, he is fascinated by the land and how people use and value it, an interest that grew out of his studies in biology at Colorado College (B.A., 1979), his work there with James Enderson on peregrine falcons, and his initial forays into landscape photography. During a subsequent year taking art courses at the University of Colorado, he realized that photography merged his ecological interests and his need for creativity, and he moved on to Arizona State University, where he earned an M.F.A. in photography in 1985. At that time he was creating paintings and installations using his cut-up photographs and negatives. After an intitial installation at the University of Colorado in 1985, he went on the road across America. The resulting portfolio was acquired by the Harry Ransom Research Center; subsequently his works were acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, among several other institutions. A review in Art in America, a Visual Artist Fellowship from the Arizona Commission on the Arts for painting, and a Wurlitzer Foundation Fellowship quickly followed.
But believing he was losing his focus, he and his wife moved to the virtual wilderness around the Gila River, near the New Mexico-Mexico border. He took part in the New Mexico BLM Wilderness Photography Survey in 1996 and became a founding board member of the Gila Resource Information Project in 1997. His treks in the desert regions, with and without his camera, eventually led to a three-year Fellowship from the Southwest Center of the University of Arizona to photograph the Gran Desierto, on the southwestern border of Arizona and Sonora, an area he had been visiting since 1978. That project led to his first publications: Sunshot (Univ. of Arizona Press, 2006), with text by Bill Broyles, and Inferno, with text by Charles Bowden (Univ. of Texas Press, 2006). Both books were honored as among the Southwest Books of the Year by the Pima County Public Library and Arizona Historical Society, and each was given a Southwest Book Award by the Border Regional Library Association of El Paso. Inferno is the first in the projected trilogy The History of the Future to be published by the University of Texas, with text by Mr. Bowden; Exodus (2008), with Juarez photographer Julian Cardona, is the second. His Guggenheim Fellowship will help support his work on the third installment–photographs of the Chihuahuan Desert–titledTrinity, which Mr. Berman expects will take seven years to complete
BRIEF HISTORY
1956 Born New York City
1975 -79 Attends Colorado College, Majors in Biology
1978 -82 Wildlife Technician for Colorado Division of Wildlife
1982 -85 Attends Arizona State University, M.F.A. Photography
1989 Receives Visual Artist Fellowship from Arizona Commission on the Arts for painting
1991 Receives Fellowship from the Wurlitzer Foundation, Taos, New Mexico
1994 -95 Instructs Photography at Western New Mexico University, Silver City New Mexico
2008 Receives Fellowship from John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
GALLERY REPRESENTATION
Scheinbaum & Russek, Santa Fe, New Mexico 505 988-5116
Etherton Gallery, Tucson, Arizona 602 624-7370
Joseph Bellows Gallery, La Jolla, California 858 456-5620
Galleri Urbane, Marfa, Texas 432 729 4200
Stephen L. Clark Gallery, Austin Texas 512 477-0828
SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe
UNM Art Museum, Albuquerque
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth
Capital Art Collection State of New Mexico, Santa Fe
The University of Indianapolis, Indianapolis
Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale
Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego
New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans
Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson
Ransom Humanities Research Center, Austin
Smith College Museum, Northhampton
Hallmark, Kansas City
The El Paso Museum of ART, El Paso
NMSU Art Gallery, Las Cruces
Denver Art Museum, Denver
Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland
Lannan Foundation, Marfa
EXHIBITIONS
2008 solo
“480 Plates” Lannan Foundation Gallery, Santa fe, NM
Highland City Gallery, Boulder, CO
Blue Dome Gallery, Silver City, NM
2007 solo
Installation “480 Plates” Galleri Urbane, Marfa, TX
“Under a Dry Moon”, Western New Mexico Museum, Silver City, NM
2006 solo
“North/South” Galleri Urbane, Marfa, TX
“Under a Dry Moon” El Paso Museum of Art
“Shadows Between Thin Lines” Performance/Installation Frostburg State University, Maryland
“Under a Dry Moon” Joseph Bellows Gallery, La Jolla, CA
2005 solo
Southwest Center Fort Lewis College – Installation, Durango CO
2008 group
“The History of the Future” Berman/Cardona, The Santa Fe Art Institute, Santa Fe, NM
“Ouch” Scheinbaum & Russek, Santa Fe, NM
“Fall Exhibition” Galleri Urbane, Marfa, TX
“First Look: Masterworks of American Photography, Amon Carter Museum, Ft Worth, TX
2007 group
“An Eclectic Eye” Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ
2006 group
Passing Through, Settling in: contemporary photographs of the desert” Stanlee & Gerald Rubin Center for the Arts, The University of Texas El Paso.
“100 Great American Photographs” Amon Carter Museum“Masterworks of American Photography” Amon Carter Museum
Stephen L. Clark Gallery “Inferno” Austin
Harwood , Albuquerque - “New Mexico Pics: The State of Photography”
“Drawn, Exposed, & Impressed: Recent Works on Paper from the Cleveland Museum of Art” Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland
Rio Bravo Fine Arts “Silver City Artists” Truth or Consequences, NM
2005 group
“The Terrain of Seeing - Sommer, Berman, & Klett” The Etherton Gallery,Tucson
“Paint on Metal”, Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson
“Looking at the World” Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale
GRIP Exhibition and Benefit Silver City
“Converge” 6 Photographers Point of View Galleri Urbane, Marfa
“Fantasy Landscapes: Ground Management” Santa fe Art Institute, Santa Fe
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS & INSTALLATIONS 1985 - 2004
Scheinbaum & Russek, Santa Fe 1992, 89 87
Etherton Gallery, Tucson 1998,94,91,88
Stark Gallery, New York 1988, 1990
Martin Gallery, Washington DC 1995
galleri Urbane, Silver City, NM 2000, 01, 03
University of Arizona Art Museum, Tucson 1990
Scottsdale Center for the Arts, Scottsdale AZ 1987
Houston Center for Photography, Houston 1986
Blue Sky, Portland 1989
UMC Fine Arts Center, CU, Boulder 1985
Light Factory, Charlotte 2003
O’Sullivan Arts Center, Regis University 1997
The Harwood Art Center, Albuquerque NM 1998
“Kiote Landscape Project” Site Installation, Arizona 1985
Southern Light Gallery at Amarillo College, Amarillo Texas 1987
Sangre De Cristo Arts Center, Pueblo Colorado 1989
Francis McCray Galleries, WNMU, Silver City New Mexico 1995
The Photographer’s Gallery, Palo Alto California 1995
Arvada Center for the Arts, Arvada Co 2002
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 1985 – 2004
“After Modernism” Berman, Hooks & Plossu Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe 1997
“Framing the Border” Photographs from the el Paso Museum of Art 2001
“Outside” Joseph Bellows Gallery La Jolla CA 2003
“Idea Photographic” Museum of Fine Arts, Santa fe 2002
“The Altered Photograph” Northlight Gallery 1988
“Arizona Photographers” Center for Creative Photography, Tucson 1991
“The Poetics of Space”, Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico 1986
“Use Only as Directed”, Nexus, Atlanta, Georgia 1988
“Real Vision” Colorado Gallery of the Arts” Littleton, CO 1994
“Creative Collecting” Smith College Museum of Art 1995
“Phoenix Art Museum Triennial Exhibition”, Phoenix, Arizona 1990
“Tradition and the Unpredictable” The Museum of Fine Arts Houston 1994
“History as Influence: Photographic Pluralism”, Soros Center, Kyiv, Ukraine1 995
“The Cutting Edge”, The Photography Show, AIPAD, New York, 1998
“Shack Obscura” Van De Griff / Marr, Santa Fe, NM 2001
“Point of Departure” Magnifico Albuquerque, NM 2003
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
“The History of the Future / La historia del futuro” Lannan Foundation, 2008
“Inferno”, Bowden/Berman, The University of Texas Press, Austin, 2006
“Sunshot”, Broyles/Bowden, the University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 2006.
“Under a Dry Moon, 100 Views of the Gran Desierto” Portfolio of Seven Folios, one hundred images. Infinite Editions, Golden Colorado 2007.
“Under a Dry Moon” High Desert Journal, Bend OR, Spring 2007
“Passing Through Settling In: contemporary photographs of the desert” Stanlee and Gerald
Rubin Center for the Visual Arts, UT El Paso, TX 2006
“Paint on Metal” Tucson Museum of Art, AZ 2005
“Sunstruck” Journal of the Southwest, UofA Tucson, AZ Vol 47.#4.2005
“SoQ Contemporary Art in Southern New Mexico” Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, 2004.
“Idea Photographic – After Modernism” Museum of Fine Art Santa fe, NM 2003
“Love” Orion Magazine, Great Barrington, MA Spring 2002.
Hocks, Plossu, Berman After Modernism n Photography”The Magazine, Sanat Fe 11/1997
“Arizona Photographers” Center for Creative Photography, Tucson AZ 1990
“Memoirs from an Exhibition,” Ken Bloom, Earthly Bounds, The Light Factory 1988.
“Kiote Landscape project” Kiote Press Arizona, 1984
[Michael P. Berman has also published many photographs in environmentally oriented publications. He makes his images available to any and all who ask and does not archive this work. Publications include: High Country News, Audubon, New Mexico Wild, Nature Conservancy.]
SELECTED AWARDS
Residency, Appalachian Environmental Arts Center, North Carolina 1988
Visual Artist Award - Painting, The Arizona Commission on the Arts,1989.
Fellowship - Painting, The Wurlitzer Foundation, Taos, New Mexico, 1991.
New Mexico BLM Wilderness Photographic Survey, NM Wilderness Alliance, 1996.
Fellowship, Gran Desierto Project. Southwest Center, U of A, Tucson, AZ 2000, 01, & 02.
“Inferno” Southwest Book Awards 2006, Border Regional Library Association, El Paso.
“Sunshot” Southwest Book Awards 2006 Border Regional Library Association, El Paso.
“Inferno”, SW Books of the Year 2006, Pima County Public Library/AZ Historical Society,
“Sunshot”, SW Books of the Year 2006, Pima County Public Library/AZ Historical Society, “Sunshot”, Embodying Arizona Book 2007 Arizona Book Award, “Sunshot” Environment Book 2007 Arizona Book Award, “Inferno” - The 2007 Orion Book Award, Finalist.
Guggenheim Fellowship, 2008.
SELECTED REVIEWS
“Michael Berman at Scheinbaum & Russek” Kathleen Shields, Art in America. 1/1990
“Redeemable Photographs of the Landscape,” Nancy Spector, SPOT, HCP. spg/1987
“The Hot Contemporary Photographers,” Logan Ward, American Photo 4/1997.
“Under a Big Sky” Margaret Regan, Tucson Weekly 9/15/2005
“Inferno/Sunshot” Mary Anne Redding, Photo-eye Booklist Fall 2006
“Then Look At The Art” Suzanne Carmichael, The New York Times12/15/1991
“No Boundaries” Jon Shumaker, Tucson Weekly 8/17/2006
“Inferno” Ken Wright, Orion Magazine 2006
“Photo’s of the Deepest Deserts” M. John Fayhee Silver City Sun News, 9/09/2007
“Everything Old is New Again” Robert L. Pincus, the San Diego Union-Tribune 12/14/2006
“History in the Making” Zane Fischer, Santa fe Reporter, 02/18/2009