February 6, 2025 • 36 mins
Have you ever wondered how art becomes activism? We bring you a conversation with curator and writer Elizabeth Ferrer, who takes us from the Chicano murals of her east Los Angeles childhood to groundbreaking exhibitions on Latinx photography. Guest hosts Gia Del Pino and Lizzy Guevara speak with Elizabeth about her retrospective on Louis Carlos Bernal, a trailblazing Chicano photographer who centered Mexican-American lives and traditions. Through striking, deeply human portraits, Bernal’s images challenge stereotypes and expand the canon of American photography. In this episode, learn about how photographs do more than reflect the culture as it is; how self-representation can dignify and transform how we see ourselves and our communities; and how images can transport the spirit of an individual subject into a cultural movement.
Elizabeth Ferrer recently curated the exhibition Louis Carlos Bernal: Retrospectiva, a landmark survey of one of the most significant American photographers of the twentieth century, which is on view through March 15, 2025 at the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona. The exhibition is accompanied by a book authored by Ferrer and co-published with Aperture, Louis Carlos Bernal: Monografía.
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(00:00):
Race Remix.
Welcome to Race Remix Conversationswith Outstanding Artist Thought Leaders
and Makers of Culture curated to help youunlock the power of imagination
and experience the impossible as possible.
Have you ever wonderedhow art becomes activism?
(00:22):
Today we bring you a conversationwith writer Elizabeth Ferrer,
who takes us from the Chicanomurals of her East Los Angeles childhood
to groundbreaking exhibitions on Latintext photography.
Guest host Gia Del Pino and LizzyGuevara speak with Elizabeth about her
retrospective on Luis Carlos Bernal,a trailblazing Chicano photographer
(00:44):
who centered Mexican-American livesand traditions
through striking deeply human portraits.
Bernal's images challenge stereotypesand expand
the canon of American photography.
In this episode,learn about how photographs
do more than reflect the culture as it is
(01:05):
how self-representation can dignifyand transform.
How we see ourselves and our communities,and how images can transport
the spirit of an individual subjectinto a cultural movement.
The Luis
Carlos Bernal retrospective can be viewedat the Center for Creative Photography
through March 15th, 2025,at the University of Arizona.
(01:29):
Hi everyone, and welcome to Race Remix.
I'm Gia Del Pino. And I'm Lizzie Guevara.
Today we're speaking with ElizabethFerrer, a curator and author
specializing in Latinaand Mexican art in photography.
She formerly served as a vice presidentand chief curator at BRIC,
a nonprofit arts and media organizationbased in Brooklyn, New York.
Hi, Elizabeth. Hi, everybody.
(01:51):
It's a real pleasure to be with all of youtoday.
Wonderful.
It's worth mentioning that
Lizzie and I both work at the Centerfor Creative Photography at the University
of Arizona, home to a premiere researchcollection of American photographic
fine arts and archives.
The center fosterscreative inquiry, dialog
and appreciation of photography'scultural impact.
We mention this because we recentlycollaborated with today's guest,
(02:14):
Elizabeth.
It's so wonderfulto have a more personal conversation
with you and about your life,
your work and your recent exhibition,Luis Carlos Bernard Retrospectiva.
So congratulations. Thank you.
Tell us how you beganyour journey into the arts
and where you were born and raisedand some background about your life.
Absolutely. Thank you.
So I was bornin East Los Angeles, California,
(02:38):
which has always beena largely Mexican-American neighborhood.
And, you know,it was kind of a typical East L.A.
upbringing, pretty conservativeCatholic family, very, very close family.
Not a lot of exposure to the arts,unfortunately.
I mean, that kind of came from really kindof an oddball mix of things.
(02:59):
I would say that my earliest inspirationin terms
of looking at art and loving art
actually came from the family Bible,which was a big kind of fancy home
and looking at these beautiful Renaissancepaintings in full color.
And I would look at those all the time.
But at the same time,when I was growing up,
this was the era of the ChicanoCivil Rights movement.
(03:22):
And a lot of young artistswere painting on the walls of,
you know,bodegas, schools, public buildings.
And that just blew me away because on theone hand, I saw this sort of mysterious,
solemn religious art in the books,and then I saw this, you know, monumental,
lively art in the making in the streetswhere I lived.
(03:42):
And, you know, all that really fedinto a love of art that I always have had.
And I would say the other thing
that I thinkis pertinent to this conversation is that
that was back in the daywhen people subscribe
to these weekly Illustrated magazineslike Life and Look,
and my mom got them alland I just devoured them.
And so, you know, in retrospect,looking at these
(04:04):
great photo essaysby, you know, people like W.
Eugene Smith, it had a big impact on me.
I loved looking at those photographs.
I kept those magazines, looked at themover and over again.
And, you know,that eventually became my passion.
Did you
ever experiment with making art yourself?
I mean, yeah, a little bit.
I mean, you know, like as a kidpainting and enjoying that.
(04:25):
But really in high school,taking up photography,
I got a hold of a 35 millimeter camera
and I used to make photo essays
from from songs like from Bob Dylan musicor Joni
Mitchell music and with kind ofcreate scenes that went along.
And then I would print the photosand put them in notebooks.
So yeah, I definitely had the bug
(04:48):
and the desireto really delve into photography.
I think I learned early onor I became aware early
on that I wasn't going to becomea professional photographer.
I didn't have that drive.
But I did have the passionfor photography.
And after studying photographya couple of years in college,
I switched to art historyand that really put me on my path
(05:09):
to becoming the curator and a writer.
Do you remember the first workor the first sort of pieces
that madeyou want to step into the role of curator?
You know, it's really funnybecause I think, as I mentioned,
the sources, the influences that I've hadhave been really diverse.
You know, I'm pretty I'mvery universal in my tastes.
(05:31):
But I also remember in high schoolwhen I had a car
going over to the Pasadena Museumof Art Museum that no longer exists,
but it was a very progressive institutionin its time.
So a lot of abstract art.
And I remember seeing, for example,
Frank Stella's big hard edged paintingsand just being blown away
by the scale and art that was abstract.
(05:53):
And it just opened my eyesto a more contemporary form of art.
And so, you know how all these things fedinto the kinds of interests
I have now, I can't really say.
But I would also note that, you know,going back to seeing the the murals
by young Chicano artiststhat were being made,
you know, somehowI was trying to put together
the kind of artthat I wanted to work with,
(06:15):
which for me, you know,I wanted to be excited about it.
I wanted the art to be meaningful.
And, you know, certainly seeing this workby Chicano
artists being played on the streets,that just, you know,
opened my eyes to how artcould be really relevant to a community.
You know,Chicano artists were not being shown
at the Pasadena Museum of Artas much as I love the work I saw.
(06:39):
But, you know,seeing these other art forms in public art
gave me in-roads to thinking about,you know, how I could eventually work
with artists and actual while for meto all put it together for a while,
I spent a lot of time in Mexicocurating contemporary Mexican art.
And that also goes back to my heritage.
You know,I wanted to learn about my Mexican roots,
and it was only after working with Mexicanart for several years that I realized
(07:01):
that I really wanted to work
with artists closer to home,which for me has been in New York,
but also in L.A., where I'm fromand where I travel back to often.
I'm hoping we can focus a little bitmore on your time in Mexico
and then delve a little bit deeperin this trajectory from working
in art in Mexico and focusingon Mexican-American art and Latin.
They are here in the United States.
(07:23):
So you could curateda significant exhibition such as Lola
Alvarez Bravo in 2006and authored the book A Shadow
Born of EarthNew Photography in Mexico, 1993 to 1995.
How did your work begin to evolvefrom researching Mexican
art to Chicano Latinx art?
So I probably spent a good ten yearstraveling back and forth
(07:45):
between New York and mostly Mexico City,also to Oaxaca and a few other cities.
And what was so exciting about thatis that there was
a really vibrant art scene in Mexicothroughout the nineties.
And at the same time,the 1992 Columbus Quincentennial occurred
and that just really opened the floodgatesto opportunities
(08:07):
to curate exhibitions and present workof Mexican artists in the United States.
There was a lot of interest.
Museumswanted to kind of get on that bandwagon.
So I was really fortunateto be able to curate a show like a Shadow
Born of Earth, which was an exhibitionof contemporary Mexican photography,
and it traveled to something like tenor 12 venues across the United States.
(08:28):
And then the Lola AlvarezBravo exhibition was actually
first started as an invitationfrom Aperture, by the publisher
that we are working withfor the Luis Carlos Bernal book,
The Center for Creative Photography,had recently received the Lola Alvarez
Bravo Archive and work with Apertureto create the first kind
(08:48):
of major book in Englishabout Lola's work.
And fortunately,I was one of the last people to interview
Lola during her lifetime,
and I knew a lot of the peoplethat were very close to her.
So that was alsojust a very important project.
I think at that point in time,maybe not so much now, but then
she was very overlooked.
You know, her one time husband, ManuelAlvarez Bravo, was considered
(09:11):
the great master,and Lola was just seen as the spouse.
But this book and exhibitionreally demonstrated
her ownreally special talents and importance.
So all those projects and there were manymore were wonderful to work on.
They were seen in many museumsand they had a big, enthusiastic audience.
But as I mentioned, I just became moreand more aware that there were also
(09:34):
photographers closer to homethat were not getting nearly
the same amount of attention.
And I think one thing I realized at onepoint is that it's easier.
It was easier.
And I think this is still trueto go to a gallery in New York
that sells the work of well-knownMexican photographers.
Then it is to find the workof Latinx photographers,
(09:56):
and it just seemed like a big gap.
There's an organization in New Yorkcalled In En Foco.
It's a nonprofit organizationstarted in the mid
1970s as a photographers collective.
And the director at that time,Charles Biasiny Rivera,
who recently passed, asked meif I'd like to get involved.
He actually initially asked me if I'd liketo edit an issue of their magazine
(10:18):
devoted to Mariana Yampolsky,who was an American photographer
who really spent herentire career in Mexico.
And I gladly did that.
And then that led to during or curating
showsand working on other projects with them.
And I began to meetall of the photographers involved
with En Foco in New York, you know, mostmostly Puerto Rican photographers.
(10:39):
And I later became involvedwith an exhibition
that was organized by Photofestin Houston of Latinx photographers.
This was in the mid 1990s,
and it was the very first major exhibitionof Latin photography.
And actually there has not been onesince then.
I was to write the catalogfor that exhibition.
The catalogand fortunately never came to pass, but
(11:01):
that opened my eyes to Latin photographersthroughout the United States
Puerto Rican, Cuban American,especially Chicano in the Southwest.
And because that book didn't happen,
at a certain point,I had to put it all aside for a while
because I was also working,you know, at a regular institution.
But after a few years,I decided, you know,
this is somethingthat just really needs to happen.
(11:23):
I had the research,I had the contacts with the photographers,
and I just began to write the book, thatnext photography in the United States.
It took a few years.
I think tellingly, once I finished writingit, I found a publisher very quickly.
And I think this just has to do
with the fact that more and more peopledo recognize that Latin art
(11:43):
and photography is an undertoneaspect of American art history.
And there's a thirst for this knowledge.
There's certainly a thirst for itamong among students and younger people.
And so,you know, that book eventually spawned
panel discussions and more projectsand ultimately led
to the Luis Carlos Bernal exhibitionthat I curated for the center.
(12:06):
I reallyenjoyed how the book was broken up
into the themes and wasn't necessarilya time based.
Can you expand on the way that you choseto break up the book and
and how that fed into the largerthemes of a lot of the work?
Yes, that was actually difficultwhen I had first started
(12:26):
working with photo on their exhibitionof like next photography.
They were looking at the three largestLatinx population
groups in the United States.
So Cuban American,Puerto Rican and Chicano.
And the show was organized that way.
And the book was going to be organizedthat way.
And, you know, I think that's validbecause although we are all Latin
(12:47):
and have,
you know, certain fundamental thingsthat unite us, we're also very different.
We're different
geographically, the way we speak Spanish,our histories, our current challenges.
And so after a lot of thinkingand just kind of fiddling with how
I would put together a book,I finally decided to do it thematically
because these things that unite usare so strong.
So, for example, home, family,
(13:10):
ideas around the borderand immigration and diasporas.
And that's ultimately the way that I
divided up the bookand talked about the photographers.
And I think it becamea very enriching exercise
in terms of creating a historythat is not necessarily fully linear,
but that advances a sense of the richness
(13:31):
of Latinx photographythroughout the United States.
You know, and there's just so muchI mean, there's also,
you know, modes of conceptual photography.
There are important latinxs
photographerswho are working in the social media space.
There's a Latin next photographerwho, you know, who was one of the first
digital photographers.
So it's a very rich and complex history.
(13:52):
And in that idea of identity
and the way that you choseor narrowed down how to title the book
Latin nex Photography United States,what made you choose Latinx
instead of Chicano or Hispanic or,you know, various other terms?
That was another challenge.
(14:13):
I think that when I was writingthe book, Latinx was coming into play
as a more prevalent term.
You know, certainly in academiaand in the art world,
there was still a lot of resistance to it,you know, and just as one example,
I had been asked by a Museo Del Barrioto moderate a panel discussion
for an exhibition
called Down These Mean Streets,which was about urban photography,
(14:36):
primarily by photographers of color,and I'd say primarily Latinx.
And after the photographers all spoke,
the first question that came was,What is it about?
What is this Latinx?
What is that?
So we ended up havinga longer conversation about that term
than about the photography.
And I realized that in the broadercommunity, it's not necessarily
(14:58):
a term that's accepted.
It's certainly a termthat has met with resistance
by older people,however they define themselves.
I see it as a termthat is still very useful because
although it started as a a termthat is meant to be non-gender specific,
which I think is very importantat this point in time,
I also see it as a term that invitesthe intersectionality of all of us.
(15:23):
So, you know, we can be Latinx and Chicano
or Latinx and Boricua Puerto Rican,however we define ourselves,
and we can be Latinx and queer
or, you know, Latinxand somebody who also identifies
as strongly with, you know,some kind of photography or art form.
And so I still use that.
(15:44):
I still find ita term that that has relevance.
I see more and more in printthe use of Latinate, which
I think is also something that is usefulbecause it is also not gender specific.
I think that we're never
going to come up with the perfect term,and I think that's the problem.
You know, Latinx still refersto the Latin side of our identity
(16:06):
or the European side of ourof our identity.
And, you know,that is something that we tend to resist.
And so maybe someday someone
will come up with that perfect term,but it certainly hasn't happened yet.
Elizabeth, we love to invite youto read a passage from your book
that summarizes the bigger thesis.
Absolutely.
(16:26):
The work of each figure profiledin Latinx photography in the United States
is informed by a unique setof circumstances and ideals
whose variety demonstratesthat there is no monolithic
category of Latinxphotography or, more broadly, Latinx art.
Just as there is no
singular mindset to be ascribedto Mexican-Americans, Puerto Ricans,
(16:50):
Cuban-Americans and other Latinx groups
and artists across the United States,
I offer this study of Latin photographers
to create recognitionof their achievements and with the hope
that their ergs will be seen as integralto American photography
and to critical discourses on the medium.
(17:19):
That's great.
It also resonates with mebecause it reminds me of the various ways
that we all approachthe arts from different standing points.
I grew up studying art.
I also earned my MFAand I'm currently pursuing my Ph.D.
here at the University of Arizona.
What interests me in artand my focus in art is work
with a political imperative,whether it's representing those
(17:41):
who have been historically misrepresentedor challenging systems of oppression.
This connects me to my backgroundas a second generation daughter
of immigrantswho have often seen images of people
like my family and my communitybeing maligned by mainstream media.
I'm also drawn to art that activatesspaces and engages audiences
and learning about the invisible
power structures that oppressed and harmindividuals and communities.
(18:04):
So all that to saythat I'm deeply interested
in the intersection of art and activism.
Yes. In that vein, Elizabeth, we've seen
you describe yourself as an arts activist.
Could you tell us moreabout what that means to you?
And do you feel that inclinationhas roots in your upbringing?
Certainly so.
I think that arts activismcan take many forms, right?
(18:27):
And for me, it really has to dowith the artists that I work with
and how it is presented
and the audiences that I hope to attract.
Just by nature, I've never been drawn
to working with really well-known artistsor famous artists.
I've always been more interestedin artists
(18:48):
that are unknown, little known,perhaps the underdog, maybe those
with that who work with quirky languagesthat are not well understood.
I always like to be able to dig inand present
something that may be new to an audience,create new scholarship.
That's so important to me to not repeat
what others have done,but really to kind of break new ground
(19:10):
and to create a discoursethat certainly took place
when I was working with contemporaryMexican artists during the 1980s.
I when I was writing exhibitioncatalog essays,
I was really struckby the fact that very often
I was writing the very first textin English
and that it needed to be clearand informative and accurate.
(19:32):
And I took that very seriouslywhen I was at Brick,
which we haven't talked about very much,but I was there for 15 years.
Brick was really committed
to cultural diversity and to levelthe playing field for artists.
So, you know, over the course of any one
year, you would seea very diverse group of artists,
(19:52):
whether in terms of race or gender, age,the media that they work with,
the subject matters that they approached.
And we also placed a big emphasis
on audience and being a very welcomingand accessible place.
We really created kind of a second homefor artists at Brick,
and I was just so happythat we could exist on that level
(20:13):
as a place that presented rigorouslycurated art and created scholarship.
And on the other hand,a place that anybody in Brooklyn
who was interested inthe arts could come and learn and,
you know, get inspiration and educationfrom the exhibitions that were on view.
So, you know, in terms of my current work,I think that, you know,
working with Latinx photographersand more recently
(20:36):
with a Chicano photographer like Bernalcertainly goes back to my own upbringing
in East L.A., You know, having grown uparound the civil rights movement,
really too young to participate,but to see it in action
and to understand that the rolethat activism could have in giving people
a sense of agency,a sense of the possibility
(20:57):
for self-representation,for self-determination.
And that's really one of the mainmotivations behind Bernal's work.
Luis Carlos Bernal was very consciousof the fact that before him,
Mexican-Americans tended to
be represented in derogatory waysor were stereotyped,
and he wanted to use the camerato present an honest,
(21:20):
dignified, respectful image of Mexicans,American people.
You know,he was photographing his own community,
so he wanted to create workthat was for Mexican-American people.
And he also wanted to act as a bridgeto present
Mexican-American peopleto the broader world.
So having the opportunityto create a major project about Bernal's
(21:40):
work, a project that I hope
puts himinto the canon of American photography.
It's my form of activism.
It's my form of, you know, rightingthe wrongs or correcting the omissions
in the history of artand the history of photography.
Yeah, it's it's very evident in the show.
Luis Carlos Bernal retrospective on viewat the Center for Creative Photography
(22:05):
until May 15, 2025,along with the companion publication
Luis Carlos Burnham, on a graphicpublished by the CCP in Aperture.
They're both such amazing
resources for the community,
for art historians, for photographers, and
I think it's just such an amazing time
(22:27):
that we have this beautiful showat the center.
Before we take a deeper
dive into the project and Bernal's legacy.
Could you share a bit more about whohe was?
Who is Luis Carlos Bernal,as you've been in this project
for for many years now?
(22:47):
So I find the life of Luis CarlosBernal fascinating.
He had a relatively brief life,but one that was very impactful.
He was born in 1941 in Douglas, Arizona,which is right on the border.
He was born to,you know, a fairly poor family.
His father worked in the local miningindustry in copper mines.
(23:09):
His mother was was a maid.
And, you know, he he witnessed racism.
He experienced racism.
I would say that the family were,you know, were strivers.
They wanted to make sure that their kidswere well-educated.
They eventually moved to Phenix,where Luis and his two brothers
would receive a better education.
And they, you know, moved moreor less into the middle class.
(23:31):
Louis went to Catholic school and laterhe went to Arizona State University.
Fairly early on,he discovered photography.
I understood that he used to wear a littletoy camera around his neck as a kid.
It never wasn't one that actually worked,but he always wore it.
And so he was alwayskind of fascinated by photography.
And then at age of 11,he received a brownie camera as a gift
(23:53):
from a relative.
And that really beganthe passion that he had
for cameras and the whole processof making photographs.
And pretty early on, he had madea darkroom out of his family's bathroom.
So he studied photography in college.
But at the same time,he also thought that he might also be
a Spanish teacher,which probably would have been considered
(24:15):
the more practical routefor kind of a young Mexican-American.
It would certainly have been kindof the more stable route.
And he even went to Mexico City in 1962to study Spanish, to learn Spanish better.
But he was drafted into the armyafter college,
and he writes in a journal that he reallyjust wanted to get on with his own life.
He actually he was assigned workat a photography facility in Berlin.
(24:41):
So he actually learned moreabout photography in the Army.
But he just wanted at that pointto kind of get on with things.
He decided that he was, in fact,going to be a photographer.
And when he returned to Arizona,
he enrolled in an MFA program at ASU.
For a while, he studiedwith Frederic Sommer, who was this
legendary photographerwho was then based in Arizona.
(25:03):
And in 1973, he got the job
of starting the photography departmentat Pima Community College.
So he was married.He had a couple of young daughters.
The family moved to Tucson in 1973,and he held that position until
he had this terrible accident in 1989,one that eventually claimed his life.
He was in a coma from 1989 to 1993.
(25:26):
He taught at Pima.He was a beloved teacher.
But throughout that timehe was also photographing in Tucson
and eventuallyin other parts of the Southwest.
He developed a form of photography
that, on the face of things,seems fairly simple.
He was going into the Tucson barrios
meeting people, you know,he was gregarious, fluent in Spanish,
(25:48):
and he simply asked peopleif he could photograph them.
And they were very trusting.
They not only allowed him to come intotheir homes, often into their bedrooms,
and he photographed people
amidst the surroundingswhich they were most comfortable with.
So we see, you know, a range of peopleyounger, older and often older.
I think he was also very interestedin this waning traditional way
(26:10):
of life in the barrios.
He often
photographed people amidst,you know, holy pictures
or small domesticshrines, Catholic shrines.
And the work may seem like documentation
or kind of almost have a snapshotapproach, but it's very sophisticated.
He was very intentional
about what he was doing, aboutthe way that he posed people in spaces.
(26:33):
And so we can see his workas a combination
of documentation, portraitureand even staged photography.
And this isthis is the way he created his art.
He always wanted to be seen as an artist,
and he also wanted to create work that wasmeaningful to Mexican-American people.
And so he went all over the Southwest,sometimes
(26:56):
photographing people out of doors,the places that people congregated.
But more often than not,photographing inside people's homes,
creating this very rich record, you know,creative artistic record of the way
people, Mexican-American people lived,you know, in these times and places.
We have a
really great clip from the Centerfor Creative Photography's
(27:17):
Luis Carlos Bernal Archive,which you can find on the CCP YouTube.
And this clip is calledThe Boy in the Barrio.
I think you can take the boyout of the barrio, but I don't think
you can take the barrio out of the boy.
And so in termsof whether I remain as a photographer
or I go on into other areasor whatever happens
(27:39):
in my soul, I will always be a Chicano
till the day I die, I will be a Chicano.
I love this clip.
Bernal just unabashedly
takes pride in his identityas a Chicano, and
I think it's important to kind of situatewhat does this identity mean?
And I just would like to read a passagefrom Luis Carlos Bernal monograph here,
(28:01):
which was just recently publishedthat talks about Chicanos
because it is a very unique identityand has a very unique political context.
And I'm wondering perhapswe can chat about that a little bit more
after this passage is read
and an essay that you
wrote, Elizabeth,you say the articulation of cultural
and spiritual values that reflected pridein one's race and heritage.
(28:25):
Mecanismo was central to the movement
and iconography centeringon pre-Columbian deeds and culture.
The Virgin of Guadalupe, Mexico's patronsaint, and the sacred heart of Jesus,
an emblem of love and compassionand popular heroes of Mexican Revolution
served to link Chicanosto histories and values, apart from
and well beyond the Eurocentric constructof American exceptionalism.
(28:47):
Moreover, nor articulationsaround the concept of Aztlán,
the ancestral home of the Aztecsin the American Southwest,
became a rallying cry for Chicanos,claiming sovereignty over
colonized lands of the region.
Although it does not appearthat Bernal ever spoke of Aslan,
the arc of his life and travelsas a photographer are beginning
in the border town of Douglasand extending to states
(29:09):
throughout the Southwestand to Mexico, evokes a similar quest
as search for ancestral rootsfor a sovereign homeland,
and for a coalescence of personaland creative fulfillment.
Bernal began to express his awakeningChicano identity as a student.
At the same time, he was grappling withthe development of his artistic voice.
The two threads were becoming intertwinedas he wrote.
(29:31):
I have felt a great deal of angerand anxiety in my life,
and I have used photographyas an outlet for these frustrations.
My images have always dealtwith the inner battle of my soul.
I just find that passage so powerful.
I'm wondering if you can speak to it.
Absolutely.
So, you know, Bernal came to Chicanismoas a young adult.
(29:52):
He was aware of the Chicano CivilRights Movement
of the protests and strikesin behalf of farmworkers in California.
You know, and these protestsextended throughout the Southwest.
There was a lot of activityon the university campuses.
Interestingly,Bernal himself was not overtly political.
I don't have any record of himtaking part in protest marches,
(30:14):
but more importantly,if you look at his photography,
what he's really interested inis bringing out
the spiritand individuality of a single person.
You know, if you look at what Chicanophotography meant at the beginning,
it was this kind of protest photography.
There's such powerful images of these,you know, mass processions are large
(30:35):
rallies taking place in centralCalifornia, in L.A., in Phoenix.
Those were not the kinds of photographsthat Bernal made.
He did not photograph the masses.
He photographed the individual.
He only occasionally photographedfarmworkers.
There's a couple of small series of work,and we have
some of those photos in the show.
And when he does photographthese people, it's a very small groups
(30:55):
and it's individual people.
And when he thinks about Chicanismo,you know, he thinks about a Chicanismo
in terms of how others thought about itin terms of pride and
in self, in race, in culture and heritage.
But he's also thinking
of Chicanismo very spiritually,
and I think that'swhat sets Bernal apart from others.
(31:18):
He saw something very spiritualin the way that people lived.
It was it wasit was partially about Catholicism
and the strength of Catholicism in thesetraditional Mexican-American communities.
But it went far beyond that.
It was about every single personbeing exceptional
and about every single person
being tiedto the greater events in the world.
(31:40):
And for me, that's sort of mystical.
You know, this idea of the individualas exceptional
and tied to the greater eventsin the world is, for me, what sets
Bernal apart.
There's a mystical nature in it to mein the way that he understood
the individual person,even the everyday person,
as being very specialand something to be deeply respected
(32:03):
and to expressthat through the photograph.
I think that that
is so wonderfuland it really comes out in his images
and in the way that he began to use colorto express these ideas.
Could you provide more insightinto Luis Carlos Bernal's legacy
in American photography,and how do you position Bernal
(32:25):
within the broader contextof the photography canon?
So this is the challenging thing, right?
We know that Bernal is a very importantphotography.
In fact, Bernal knewthat he was a very important photographer.
You know, he was passed over for,you know, the major
exhibitions, the major bookswhen he would see, you know, white
photographers of his generationget those opportunities in the 1980s.
(32:49):
And so we have a whole legacyof photographers of color.
You know, being passed overor being overlooked
in many ways, sort of being invisible.
And yet they were creating this work.
They were creating these majorbodies of work that's beginning to change.
You know, there have been a number of,
you know, major exhibitionsof African-American photographers.
A lot of younger photographershave younger next photographers
(33:12):
have had exhibitions recentlylike Laura Aguilar and Cristina Fernandez.
And so for me, it's really this bookand this exhibition
and of course, future effortsthat are going to put Bernal on the map.
You know, working with Aperture,publishing a major book,
having such a majorcomprehensive exhibition,
all those play a role in exposing Bernalto a greater audience.
(33:34):
My goalultimately is for Bernal to be seen
as part of that canonof American photography.
He was a very important photographerin the second half of the 20th century.
He was one of the pioneers in using color,and yet he's never seen in that light.
And so, you know, the hope is thatthere are future exhibitions,
that his work is seen in groupexhibitions, that graduate students
(33:57):
begin to do more research.
It's nothing that happens overnight,but I certainly hope that over time
Bernal's reputation grows and he attainsthat position that he's always deserved.
Well, Elizabeth,this has been such a pleasure.
I'm curious to know you have any lastthoughts or key points to help viewers
gain a better understanding of who LouisCollins Bernal was and his lasting legacy?
(34:20):
Well, certainly,I hope that everybody gets a chance
to look at the bookand see the exhibition.
The Center for Creative Photographyhas also put some wonderful
resources online and one that has beenespecially valuable to me.
Were the video clips to hear Bernal speak,to hear about his work from his,
you know, from his own wordsis, is just very informative.
(34:43):
And so there's a lot of
resources out there now, and I hopethat everybody takes advantage of them.
Thank you, Elizabeth, for your time.
We've been so fortunate to havethe opportunity to speak with you today.
And we appreciate you offeringall this scholarship to the field
and to the public.
For those interested in learningmore about Luis Carlos Bernal, visit
the Luis Carlos Bernard (35:03):
Retrospectiva now on view
until March 15, 2025.
Please visit the center's websiteat https://CCP.Arizona.Edu
For those interested in reading
Latinx photography in the United States,a Visual History.
You can visit the Universityof Washington Press
(35:25):
and get your copy of LouisCarlos Bernal: Monografía
co-published by the
Center for Creative Photographyand Aperture.
Yes. Thank you so much, Elizabeth,for your incredible scholarship
and activism and vision.
And if I just may, as a Latinain this field,
your contributions have deeply impacted meand so many others who are working
toward a more nuanced and accuraterepresentation of our communities.
(35:49):
Your work has been instrumentalin ensuring our voices and creative
expressions are included, recognized,and no longer misinterpreted or erased.
Thank you for paving the wayand offering us histories
that validate our lives and our art.
And I'm so grateful for this opportunityto speak with you today
and look forward to continuing your workin my own way.
Thank you.
Thank you. It's been my pleasure.
(36:09):
Thank you for joining Race Remix today.
This episode is made possible throughthe generous donations of our sponsors
and the efforts of our team of students,staff, faculty and community partners.
If you enjoyed this conversation,listen to more episodes
at https://raceremix.art.arizona.edu.
Race Remix.
Welcome to Race Remix Conversationswith Outstanding Artist Thought Leaders
and Makers of Culture curated to help youunlock the power of imagination
and experience the impossible as possible.
Have you ever wonderedhow art becomes activism?
(00:22):
Today we bring you a conversationwith writer Elizabeth Ferrer,
who takes us from the Chicanomurals of her East Los Angeles childhood
to groundbreaking exhibitions on Latintext photography.
Guest host Gia Del Pino and LizzyGuevara speak with Elizabeth about her
retrospective on Luis Carlos Bernal,a trailblazing Chicano photographer
(00:44):
who centered Mexican-American livesand traditions
through striking deeply human portraits.
Bernal's images challenge stereotypesand expand
the canon of American photography.
In this episode,learn about how photographs
do more than reflect the culture as it is
(01:05):
how self-representation can dignifyand transform.
How we see ourselves and our communities,and how images can transport
the spirit of an individual subjectinto a cultural movement.
The Luis
Carlos Bernal retrospective can be viewedat the Center for Creative Photography
through March 15th, 2025,at the University of Arizona.
(01:29):
Hi everyone, and welcome to Race Remix.
I'm Gia Del Pino. And I'm Lizzie Guevara.
Today we're speaking with ElizabethFerrer, a curator and author
specializing in Latinaand Mexican art in photography.
She formerly served as a vice presidentand chief curator at BRIC,
a nonprofit arts and media organizationbased in Brooklyn, New York.
Hi, Elizabeth. Hi, everybody.
(01:51):
It's a real pleasure to be with all of youtoday.
Wonderful.
It's worth mentioning that
Lizzie and I both work at the Centerfor Creative Photography at the University
of Arizona, home to a premiere researchcollection of American photographic
fine arts and archives.
The center fosterscreative inquiry, dialog
and appreciation of photography'scultural impact.
We mention this because we recentlycollaborated with today's guest,
(02:14):
Elizabeth.
It's so wonderfulto have a more personal conversation
with you and about your life,
your work and your recent exhibition,Luis Carlos Bernard Retrospectiva.
So congratulations. Thank you.
Tell us how you beganyour journey into the arts
and where you were born and raisedand some background about your life.
Absolutely. Thank you.
So I was bornin East Los Angeles, California,
(02:38):
which has always beena largely Mexican-American neighborhood.
And, you know,it was kind of a typical East L.A.
upbringing, pretty conservativeCatholic family, very, very close family.
Not a lot of exposure to the arts,unfortunately.
I mean, that kind of came from really kindof an oddball mix of things.
(02:59):
I would say that my earliest inspirationin terms
of looking at art and loving art
actually came from the family Bible,which was a big kind of fancy home
and looking at these beautiful Renaissancepaintings in full color.
And I would look at those all the time.
But at the same time,when I was growing up,
this was the era of the ChicanoCivil Rights movement.
(03:22):
And a lot of young artistswere painting on the walls of,
you know,bodegas, schools, public buildings.
And that just blew me away because on theone hand, I saw this sort of mysterious,
solemn religious art in the books,and then I saw this, you know, monumental,
lively art in the making in the streetswhere I lived.
(03:42):
And, you know, all that really fedinto a love of art that I always have had.
And I would say the other thing
that I thinkis pertinent to this conversation is that
that was back in the daywhen people subscribe
to these weekly Illustrated magazineslike Life and Look,
and my mom got them alland I just devoured them.
And so, you know, in retrospect,looking at these
(04:04):
great photo essaysby, you know, people like W.
Eugene Smith, it had a big impact on me.
I loved looking at those photographs.
I kept those magazines, looked at themover and over again.
And, you know,that eventually became my passion.
Did you
ever experiment with making art yourself?
I mean, yeah, a little bit.
I mean, you know, like as a kidpainting and enjoying that.
(04:25):
But really in high school,taking up photography,
I got a hold of a 35 millimeter camera
and I used to make photo essays
from from songs like from Bob Dylan musicor Joni
Mitchell music and with kind ofcreate scenes that went along.
And then I would print the photosand put them in notebooks.
So yeah, I definitely had the bug
(04:48):
and the desireto really delve into photography.
I think I learned early onor I became aware early
on that I wasn't going to becomea professional photographer.
I didn't have that drive.
But I did have the passionfor photography.
And after studying photographya couple of years in college,
I switched to art historyand that really put me on my path
(05:09):
to becoming the curator and a writer.
Do you remember the first workor the first sort of pieces
that madeyou want to step into the role of curator?
You know, it's really funnybecause I think, as I mentioned,
the sources, the influences that I've hadhave been really diverse.
You know, I'm pretty I'mvery universal in my tastes.
(05:31):
But I also remember in high schoolwhen I had a car
going over to the Pasadena Museumof Art Museum that no longer exists,
but it was a very progressive institutionin its time.
So a lot of abstract art.
And I remember seeing, for example,
Frank Stella's big hard edged paintingsand just being blown away
by the scale and art that was abstract.
(05:53):
And it just opened my eyesto a more contemporary form of art.
And so, you know how all these things fedinto the kinds of interests
I have now, I can't really say.
But I would also note that, you know,going back to seeing the the murals
by young Chicano artiststhat were being made,
you know, somehowI was trying to put together
the kind of artthat I wanted to work with,
(06:15):
which for me, you know,I wanted to be excited about it.
I wanted the art to be meaningful.
And, you know, certainly seeing this workby Chicano
artists being played on the streets,that just, you know,
opened my eyes to how artcould be really relevant to a community.
You know,Chicano artists were not being shown
at the Pasadena Museum of Artas much as I love the work I saw.
(06:39):
But, you know,seeing these other art forms in public art
gave me in-roads to thinking about,you know, how I could eventually work
with artists and actual while for meto all put it together for a while,
I spent a lot of time in Mexicocurating contemporary Mexican art.
And that also goes back to my heritage.
You know,I wanted to learn about my Mexican roots,
and it was only after working with Mexicanart for several years that I realized
(07:01):
that I really wanted to work
with artists closer to home,which for me has been in New York,
but also in L.A., where I'm fromand where I travel back to often.
I'm hoping we can focus a little bitmore on your time in Mexico
and then delve a little bit deeperin this trajectory from working
in art in Mexico and focusingon Mexican-American art and Latin.
They are here in the United States.
(07:23):
So you could curateda significant exhibition such as Lola
Alvarez Bravo in 2006and authored the book A Shadow
Born of EarthNew Photography in Mexico, 1993 to 1995.
How did your work begin to evolvefrom researching Mexican
art to Chicano Latinx art?
So I probably spent a good ten yearstraveling back and forth
(07:45):
between New York and mostly Mexico City,also to Oaxaca and a few other cities.
And what was so exciting about thatis that there was
a really vibrant art scene in Mexicothroughout the nineties.
And at the same time,the 1992 Columbus Quincentennial occurred
and that just really opened the floodgatesto opportunities
(08:07):
to curate exhibitions and present workof Mexican artists in the United States.
There was a lot of interest.
Museumswanted to kind of get on that bandwagon.
So I was really fortunateto be able to curate a show like a Shadow
Born of Earth, which was an exhibitionof contemporary Mexican photography,
and it traveled to something like tenor 12 venues across the United States.
(08:28):
And then the Lola AlvarezBravo exhibition was actually
first started as an invitationfrom Aperture, by the publisher
that we are working withfor the Luis Carlos Bernal book,
The Center for Creative Photography,had recently received the Lola Alvarez
Bravo Archive and work with Apertureto create the first kind
(08:48):
of major book in Englishabout Lola's work.
And fortunately,I was one of the last people to interview
Lola during her lifetime,
and I knew a lot of the peoplethat were very close to her.
So that was alsojust a very important project.
I think at that point in time,maybe not so much now, but then
she was very overlooked.
You know, her one time husband, ManuelAlvarez Bravo, was considered
(09:11):
the great master,and Lola was just seen as the spouse.
But this book and exhibitionreally demonstrated
her ownreally special talents and importance.
So all those projects and there were manymore were wonderful to work on.
They were seen in many museumsand they had a big, enthusiastic audience.
But as I mentioned, I just became moreand more aware that there were also
(09:34):
photographers closer to homethat were not getting nearly
the same amount of attention.
And I think one thing I realized at onepoint is that it's easier.
It was easier.
And I think this is still trueto go to a gallery in New York
that sells the work of well-knownMexican photographers.
Then it is to find the workof Latinx photographers,
(09:56):
and it just seemed like a big gap.
There's an organization in New Yorkcalled In En Foco.
It's a nonprofit organizationstarted in the mid
1970s as a photographers collective.
And the director at that time,Charles Biasiny Rivera,
who recently passed, asked meif I'd like to get involved.
He actually initially asked me if I'd liketo edit an issue of their magazine
(10:18):
devoted to Mariana Yampolsky,who was an American photographer
who really spent herentire career in Mexico.
And I gladly did that.
And then that led to during or curating
showsand working on other projects with them.
And I began to meetall of the photographers involved
with En Foco in New York, you know, mostmostly Puerto Rican photographers.
(10:39):
And I later became involvedwith an exhibition
that was organized by Photofestin Houston of Latinx photographers.
This was in the mid 1990s,
and it was the very first major exhibitionof Latin photography.
And actually there has not been onesince then.
I was to write the catalogfor that exhibition.
The catalogand fortunately never came to pass, but
(11:01):
that opened my eyes to Latin photographersthroughout the United States
Puerto Rican, Cuban American,especially Chicano in the Southwest.
And because that book didn't happen,
at a certain point,I had to put it all aside for a while
because I was also working,you know, at a regular institution.
But after a few years,I decided, you know,
this is somethingthat just really needs to happen.
(11:23):
I had the research,I had the contacts with the photographers,
and I just began to write the book, thatnext photography in the United States.
It took a few years.
I think tellingly, once I finished writingit, I found a publisher very quickly.
And I think this just has to do
with the fact that more and more peopledo recognize that Latin art
(11:43):
and photography is an undertoneaspect of American art history.
And there's a thirst for this knowledge.
There's certainly a thirst for itamong among students and younger people.
And so,you know, that book eventually spawned
panel discussions and more projectsand ultimately led
to the Luis Carlos Bernal exhibitionthat I curated for the center.
(12:06):
I reallyenjoyed how the book was broken up
into the themes and wasn't necessarilya time based.
Can you expand on the way that you choseto break up the book and
and how that fed into the largerthemes of a lot of the work?
Yes, that was actually difficultwhen I had first started
(12:26):
working with photo on their exhibitionof like next photography.
They were looking at the three largestLatinx population
groups in the United States.
So Cuban American,Puerto Rican and Chicano.
And the show was organized that way.
And the book was going to be organizedthat way.
And, you know, I think that's validbecause although we are all Latin
(12:47):
and have,
you know, certain fundamental thingsthat unite us, we're also very different.
We're different
geographically, the way we speak Spanish,our histories, our current challenges.
And so after a lot of thinkingand just kind of fiddling with how
I would put together a book,I finally decided to do it thematically
because these things that unite usare so strong.
So, for example, home, family,
(13:10):
ideas around the borderand immigration and diasporas.
And that's ultimately the way that I
divided up the bookand talked about the photographers.
And I think it becamea very enriching exercise
in terms of creating a historythat is not necessarily fully linear,
but that advances a sense of the richness
(13:31):
of Latinx photographythroughout the United States.
You know, and there's just so muchI mean, there's also,
you know, modes of conceptual photography.
There are important latinxs
photographerswho are working in the social media space.
There's a Latin next photographerwho, you know, who was one of the first
digital photographers.
So it's a very rich and complex history.
(13:52):
And in that idea of identity
and the way that you choseor narrowed down how to title the book
Latin nex Photography United States,what made you choose Latinx
instead of Chicano or Hispanic or,you know, various other terms?
That was another challenge.
(14:13):
I think that when I was writingthe book, Latinx was coming into play
as a more prevalent term.
You know, certainly in academiaand in the art world,
there was still a lot of resistance to it,you know, and just as one example,
I had been asked by a Museo Del Barrioto moderate a panel discussion
for an exhibition
called Down These Mean Streets,which was about urban photography,
(14:36):
primarily by photographers of color,and I'd say primarily Latinx.
And after the photographers all spoke,
the first question that came was,What is it about?
What is this Latinx?
What is that?
So we ended up havinga longer conversation about that term
than about the photography.
And I realized that in the broadercommunity, it's not necessarily
(14:58):
a term that's accepted.
It's certainly a termthat has met with resistance
by older people,however they define themselves.
I see it as a termthat is still very useful because
although it started as a a termthat is meant to be non-gender specific,
which I think is very importantat this point in time,
I also see it as a term that invitesthe intersectionality of all of us.
(15:23):
So, you know, we can be Latinx and Chicano
or Latinx and Boricua Puerto Rican,however we define ourselves,
and we can be Latinx and queer
or, you know, Latinxand somebody who also identifies
as strongly with, you know,some kind of photography or art form.
And so I still use that.
(15:44):
I still find ita term that that has relevance.
I see more and more in printthe use of Latinate, which
I think is also something that is usefulbecause it is also not gender specific.
I think that we're never
going to come up with the perfect term,and I think that's the problem.
You know, Latinx still refersto the Latin side of our identity
(16:06):
or the European side of ourof our identity.
And, you know,that is something that we tend to resist.
And so maybe someday someone
will come up with that perfect term,but it certainly hasn't happened yet.
Elizabeth, we love to invite youto read a passage from your book
that summarizes the bigger thesis.
Absolutely.
(16:26):
The work of each figure profiledin Latinx photography in the United States
is informed by a unique setof circumstances and ideals
whose variety demonstratesthat there is no monolithic
category of Latinxphotography or, more broadly, Latinx art.
Just as there is no
singular mindset to be ascribedto Mexican-Americans, Puerto Ricans,
(16:50):
Cuban-Americans and other Latinx groups
and artists across the United States,
I offer this study of Latin photographers
to create recognitionof their achievements and with the hope
that their ergs will be seen as integralto American photography
and to critical discourses on the medium.
(17:19):
That's great.
It also resonates with mebecause it reminds me of the various ways
that we all approachthe arts from different standing points.
I grew up studying art.
I also earned my MFAand I'm currently pursuing my Ph.D.
here at the University of Arizona.
What interests me in artand my focus in art is work
with a political imperative,whether it's representing those
(17:41):
who have been historically misrepresentedor challenging systems of oppression.
This connects me to my backgroundas a second generation daughter
of immigrantswho have often seen images of people
like my family and my communitybeing maligned by mainstream media.
I'm also drawn to art that activatesspaces and engages audiences
and learning about the invisible
power structures that oppressed and harmindividuals and communities.
(18:04):
So all that to saythat I'm deeply interested
in the intersection of art and activism.
Yes. In that vein, Elizabeth, we've seen
you describe yourself as an arts activist.
Could you tell us moreabout what that means to you?
And do you feel that inclinationhas roots in your upbringing?
Certainly so.
I think that arts activismcan take many forms, right?
(18:27):
And for me, it really has to dowith the artists that I work with
and how it is presented
and the audiences that I hope to attract.
Just by nature, I've never been drawn
to working with really well-known artistsor famous artists.
I've always been more interestedin artists
(18:48):
that are unknown, little known,perhaps the underdog, maybe those
with that who work with quirky languagesthat are not well understood.
I always like to be able to dig inand present
something that may be new to an audience,create new scholarship.
That's so important to me to not repeat
what others have done,but really to kind of break new ground
(19:10):
and to create a discoursethat certainly took place
when I was working with contemporaryMexican artists during the 1980s.
I when I was writing exhibitioncatalog essays,
I was really struckby the fact that very often
I was writing the very first textin English
and that it needed to be clearand informative and accurate.
(19:32):
And I took that very seriouslywhen I was at Brick,
which we haven't talked about very much,but I was there for 15 years.
Brick was really committed
to cultural diversity and to levelthe playing field for artists.
So, you know, over the course of any one
year, you would seea very diverse group of artists,
(19:52):
whether in terms of race or gender, age,the media that they work with,
the subject matters that they approached.
And we also placed a big emphasis
on audience and being a very welcomingand accessible place.
We really created kind of a second homefor artists at Brick,
and I was just so happythat we could exist on that level
(20:13):
as a place that presented rigorouslycurated art and created scholarship.
And on the other hand,a place that anybody in Brooklyn
who was interested inthe arts could come and learn and,
you know, get inspiration and educationfrom the exhibitions that were on view.
So, you know, in terms of my current work,I think that, you know,
working with Latinx photographersand more recently
(20:36):
with a Chicano photographer like Bernalcertainly goes back to my own upbringing
in East L.A., You know, having grown uparound the civil rights movement,
really too young to participate,but to see it in action
and to understand that the rolethat activism could have in giving people
a sense of agency,a sense of the possibility
(20:57):
for self-representation,for self-determination.
And that's really one of the mainmotivations behind Bernal's work.
Luis Carlos Bernal was very consciousof the fact that before him,
Mexican-Americans tended to
be represented in derogatory waysor were stereotyped,
and he wanted to use the camerato present an honest,
(21:20):
dignified, respectful image of Mexicans,American people.
You know,he was photographing his own community,
so he wanted to create workthat was for Mexican-American people.
And he also wanted to act as a bridgeto present
Mexican-American peopleto the broader world.
So having the opportunityto create a major project about Bernal's
(21:40):
work, a project that I hope
puts himinto the canon of American photography.
It's my form of activism.
It's my form of, you know, rightingthe wrongs or correcting the omissions
in the history of artand the history of photography.
Yeah, it's it's very evident in the show.
Luis Carlos Bernal retrospective on viewat the Center for Creative Photography
(22:05):
until May 15, 2025,along with the companion publication
Luis Carlos Burnham, on a graphicpublished by the CCP in Aperture.
They're both such amazing
resources for the community,
for art historians, for photographers, and
I think it's just such an amazing time
(22:27):
that we have this beautiful showat the center.
Before we take a deeper
dive into the project and Bernal's legacy.
Could you share a bit more about whohe was?
Who is Luis Carlos Bernal,as you've been in this project
for for many years now?
(22:47):
So I find the life of Luis CarlosBernal fascinating.
He had a relatively brief life,but one that was very impactful.
He was born in 1941 in Douglas, Arizona,which is right on the border.
He was born to,you know, a fairly poor family.
His father worked in the local miningindustry in copper mines.
(23:09):
His mother was was a maid.
And, you know, he he witnessed racism.
He experienced racism.
I would say that the family were,you know, were strivers.
They wanted to make sure that their kidswere well-educated.
They eventually moved to Phenix,where Luis and his two brothers
would receive a better education.
And they, you know, moved moreor less into the middle class.
(23:31):
Louis went to Catholic school and laterhe went to Arizona State University.
Fairly early on,he discovered photography.
I understood that he used to wear a littletoy camera around his neck as a kid.
It never wasn't one that actually worked,but he always wore it.
And so he was alwayskind of fascinated by photography.
And then at age of 11,he received a brownie camera as a gift
(23:53):
from a relative.
And that really beganthe passion that he had
for cameras and the whole processof making photographs.
And pretty early on, he had madea darkroom out of his family's bathroom.
So he studied photography in college.
But at the same time,he also thought that he might also be
a Spanish teacher,which probably would have been considered
(24:15):
the more practical routefor kind of a young Mexican-American.
It would certainly have been kindof the more stable route.
And he even went to Mexico City in 1962to study Spanish, to learn Spanish better.
But he was drafted into the armyafter college,
and he writes in a journal that he reallyjust wanted to get on with his own life.
He actually he was assigned workat a photography facility in Berlin.
(24:41):
So he actually learned moreabout photography in the Army.
But he just wanted at that pointto kind of get on with things.
He decided that he was, in fact,going to be a photographer.
And when he returned to Arizona,
he enrolled in an MFA program at ASU.
For a while, he studiedwith Frederic Sommer, who was this
legendary photographerwho was then based in Arizona.
(25:03):
And in 1973, he got the job
of starting the photography departmentat Pima Community College.
So he was married.He had a couple of young daughters.
The family moved to Tucson in 1973,and he held that position until
he had this terrible accident in 1989,one that eventually claimed his life.
He was in a coma from 1989 to 1993.
(25:26):
He taught at Pima.He was a beloved teacher.
But throughout that timehe was also photographing in Tucson
and eventuallyin other parts of the Southwest.
He developed a form of photography
that, on the face of things,seems fairly simple.
He was going into the Tucson barrios
meeting people, you know,he was gregarious, fluent in Spanish,
(25:48):
and he simply asked peopleif he could photograph them.
And they were very trusting.
They not only allowed him to come intotheir homes, often into their bedrooms,
and he photographed people
amidst the surroundingswhich they were most comfortable with.
So we see, you know, a range of peopleyounger, older and often older.
I think he was also very interestedin this waning traditional way
(26:10):
of life in the barrios.
He often
photographed people amidst,you know, holy pictures
or small domesticshrines, Catholic shrines.
And the work may seem like documentation
or kind of almost have a snapshotapproach, but it's very sophisticated.
He was very intentional
about what he was doing, aboutthe way that he posed people in spaces.
(26:33):
And so we can see his workas a combination
of documentation, portraitureand even staged photography.
And this isthis is the way he created his art.
He always wanted to be seen as an artist,
and he also wanted to create work that wasmeaningful to Mexican-American people.
And so he went all over the Southwest,sometimes
(26:56):
photographing people out of doors,the places that people congregated.
But more often than not,photographing inside people's homes,
creating this very rich record, you know,creative artistic record of the way
people, Mexican-American people lived,you know, in these times and places.
We have a
really great clip from the Centerfor Creative Photography's
(27:17):
Luis Carlos Bernal Archive,which you can find on the CCP YouTube.
And this clip is calledThe Boy in the Barrio.
I think you can take the boyout of the barrio, but I don't think
you can take the barrio out of the boy.
And so in termsof whether I remain as a photographer
or I go on into other areasor whatever happens
(27:39):
in my soul, I will always be a Chicano
till the day I die, I will be a Chicano.
I love this clip.
Bernal just unabashedly
takes pride in his identityas a Chicano, and
I think it's important to kind of situatewhat does this identity mean?
And I just would like to read a passagefrom Luis Carlos Bernal monograph here,
(28:01):
which was just recently publishedthat talks about Chicanos
because it is a very unique identityand has a very unique political context.
And I'm wondering perhapswe can chat about that a little bit more
after this passage is read
and an essay that you
wrote, Elizabeth,you say the articulation of cultural
and spiritual values that reflected pridein one's race and heritage.
(28:25):
Mecanismo was central to the movement
and iconography centeringon pre-Columbian deeds and culture.
The Virgin of Guadalupe, Mexico's patronsaint, and the sacred heart of Jesus,
an emblem of love and compassionand popular heroes of Mexican Revolution
served to link Chicanosto histories and values, apart from
and well beyond the Eurocentric constructof American exceptionalism.
(28:47):
Moreover, nor articulationsaround the concept of Aztlán,
the ancestral home of the Aztecsin the American Southwest,
became a rallying cry for Chicanos,claiming sovereignty over
colonized lands of the region.
Although it does not appearthat Bernal ever spoke of Aslan,
the arc of his life and travelsas a photographer are beginning
in the border town of Douglasand extending to states
(29:09):
throughout the Southwestand to Mexico, evokes a similar quest
as search for ancestral rootsfor a sovereign homeland,
and for a coalescence of personaland creative fulfillment.
Bernal began to express his awakeningChicano identity as a student.
At the same time, he was grappling withthe development of his artistic voice.
The two threads were becoming intertwinedas he wrote.
(29:31):
I have felt a great deal of angerand anxiety in my life,
and I have used photographyas an outlet for these frustrations.
My images have always dealtwith the inner battle of my soul.
I just find that passage so powerful.
I'm wondering if you can speak to it.
Absolutely.
So, you know, Bernal came to Chicanismoas a young adult.
(29:52):
He was aware of the Chicano CivilRights Movement
of the protests and strikesin behalf of farmworkers in California.
You know, and these protestsextended throughout the Southwest.
There was a lot of activityon the university campuses.
Interestingly,Bernal himself was not overtly political.
I don't have any record of himtaking part in protest marches,
(30:14):
but more importantly,if you look at his photography,
what he's really interested inis bringing out
the spiritand individuality of a single person.
You know, if you look at what Chicanophotography meant at the beginning,
it was this kind of protest photography.
There's such powerful images of these,you know, mass processions are large
(30:35):
rallies taking place in centralCalifornia, in L.A., in Phoenix.
Those were not the kinds of photographsthat Bernal made.
He did not photograph the masses.
He photographed the individual.
He only occasionally photographedfarmworkers.
There's a couple of small series of work,and we have
some of those photos in the show.
And when he does photographthese people, it's a very small groups
(30:55):
and it's individual people.
And when he thinks about Chicanismo,you know, he thinks about a Chicanismo
in terms of how others thought about itin terms of pride and
in self, in race, in culture and heritage.
But he's also thinking
of Chicanismo very spiritually,
and I think that'swhat sets Bernal apart from others.
(31:18):
He saw something very spiritualin the way that people lived.
It was it wasit was partially about Catholicism
and the strength of Catholicism in thesetraditional Mexican-American communities.
But it went far beyond that.
It was about every single personbeing exceptional
and about every single person
being tiedto the greater events in the world.
(31:40):
And for me, that's sort of mystical.
You know, this idea of the individualas exceptional
and tied to the greater eventsin the world is, for me, what sets
Bernal apart.
There's a mystical nature in it to mein the way that he understood
the individual person,even the everyday person,
as being very specialand something to be deeply respected
(32:03):
and to expressthat through the photograph.
I think that that
is so wonderfuland it really comes out in his images
and in the way that he began to use colorto express these ideas.
Could you provide more insightinto Luis Carlos Bernal's legacy
in American photography,and how do you position Bernal
(32:25):
within the broader contextof the photography canon?
So this is the challenging thing, right?
We know that Bernal is a very importantphotography.
In fact, Bernal knewthat he was a very important photographer.
You know, he was passed over for,you know, the major
exhibitions, the major bookswhen he would see, you know, white
photographers of his generationget those opportunities in the 1980s.
(32:49):
And so we have a whole legacyof photographers of color.
You know, being passed overor being overlooked
in many ways, sort of being invisible.
And yet they were creating this work.
They were creating these majorbodies of work that's beginning to change.
You know, there have been a number of,
you know, major exhibitionsof African-American photographers.
A lot of younger photographershave younger next photographers
(33:12):
have had exhibitions recentlylike Laura Aguilar and Cristina Fernandez.
And so for me, it's really this bookand this exhibition
and of course, future effortsthat are going to put Bernal on the map.
You know, working with Aperture,publishing a major book,
having such a majorcomprehensive exhibition,
all those play a role in exposing Bernalto a greater audience.
(33:34):
My goalultimately is for Bernal to be seen
as part of that canonof American photography.
He was a very important photographerin the second half of the 20th century.
He was one of the pioneers in using color,and yet he's never seen in that light.
And so, you know, the hope is thatthere are future exhibitions,
that his work is seen in groupexhibitions, that graduate students
(33:57):
begin to do more research.
It's nothing that happens overnight,but I certainly hope that over time
Bernal's reputation grows and he attainsthat position that he's always deserved.
Well, Elizabeth,this has been such a pleasure.
I'm curious to know you have any lastthoughts or key points to help viewers
gain a better understanding of who LouisCollins Bernal was and his lasting legacy?
(34:20):
Well, certainly,I hope that everybody gets a chance
to look at the bookand see the exhibition.
The Center for Creative Photographyhas also put some wonderful
resources online and one that has beenespecially valuable to me.
Were the video clips to hear Bernal speak,to hear about his work from his,
you know, from his own wordsis, is just very informative.
(34:43):
And so there's a lot of
resources out there now, and I hopethat everybody takes advantage of them.
Thank you, Elizabeth, for your time.
We've been so fortunate to havethe opportunity to speak with you today.
And we appreciate you offeringall this scholarship to the field
and to the public.
For those interested in learningmore about Luis Carlos Bernal, visit
the Luis Carlos Bernard (35:03):
Retrospectiva now on view
until March 15, 2025.
Please visit the center's websiteat https://CCP.Arizona.Edu
For those interested in reading
Latinx photography in the United States,a Visual History.
You can visit the Universityof Washington Press
(35:25):
and get your copy of LouisCarlos Bernal: Monografía
co-published by the
Center for Creative Photographyand Aperture.
Yes. Thank you so much, Elizabeth,for your incredible scholarship
and activism and vision.
And if I just may, as a Latinain this field,
your contributions have deeply impacted meand so many others who are working
toward a more nuanced and accuraterepresentation of our communities.
(35:49):
Your work has been instrumentalin ensuring our voices and creative
expressions are included, recognized,and no longer misinterpreted or erased.
Thank you for paving the wayand offering us histories
that validate our lives and our art.
And I'm so grateful for this opportunityto speak with you today
and look forward to continuing your workin my own way.
Thank you.
Thank you. It's been my pleasure.
(36:09):
Thank you for joining Race Remix today.
This episode is made possible throughthe generous donations of our sponsors
and the efforts of our team of students,staff, faculty and community partners.
If you enjoyed this conversation,listen to more episodes
at https://raceremix.art.arizona.edu.
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