History of the Future

May 3 – June 21, 2009

Nancy Sutor, independent curator, the Lannan Foundation and the Santa Fe Art Institute organized The History of the Future, which includes work by photographers Michael Berman and Julian Cardona and writer Charles Bowden. For over 30 years the artists have focused on the wild places in the desert southwest and the people crossing the lands where Mexico and the United States come together. The exhibition unfolds their multiple collaborations of the last seven years. The topic of the border is one that each participant has deep and diverse knowledge. Michael Berman’s images of the land in the Arizona, New Mexico and Northern Mexico region contain the mysterious bleak beauty of that fragile place.

Julian Cardona’s images are of people and places that he knows so well. Michael Berman was born in New York City in 1956 but came west to Colorado College where he studied biology. He received an MFA in photography from Arizona State University. Fifteen years ago, he settled in southwestern New Mexico where he now lives in the Mimbres Valley near San Lorenzo. Julian Cardona was born in Zacateca, Mexico and lives in Jaurez. He is a self-taught photographer who has published work in the newspapers El Fronterizo and El Dario de Juarez. In 1995 he organized a group show called “Nada que ver” (Nothing to See) which contained the work of photojournalists who document daily violence, death and poverty that accompanies life in Juarez. In 1998 Cardona’s work appeared in the book, Juarez:Laboratory of the Future, which features essays by Charles Bowden, Noam Chomsky and Eduardo Galeano.

Installation Images