At the Crossroads of American Photography: Callahan, Siskind, Sommer examines the revolutionary way three friends constructed a new photographic language of abstraction and metaphor. Drawing on their close associations with other fine art movements and artists, their groundbreaking teaching methods and their resounding influence on the generations of artists they mentored, the symposium explores the artists’s lives and work through photographs, music, audio recordings, lectures and personal anecdotes.

FRIDAY, MAY 8         7 PM

Emmet Gowin (photographer, professor, Princeton University and student of Callahan and Sommer) will give a poetic gallery talk about Frederick Sommer, abstract photography and the influence of Sommer and Callahan on his personal work.

SATURDAY, MAY 9         8:30 AM - 4 PM

Joseph Sterling (photographer and student of Callahan, Siskind and Sommer at the Institute of Design) will share his personal experiences and Callahan, Siskind and Sommer’s role in developing a photography program at the Institute of Design, Chicago.
Claire C. Carter (co-curator of the exhibition and Curatorial Coordinator at SMoCA) will investigate Siskind’s work and its relationship to the paintings of the Abstract Expressionists.
Leland Rice (photographer, curator and writer) will discuss Sommer’s Arizona landscape photographs and how the Surrealist painters Max Ernst and Yves Tanguy influenced his work.
Keith F. Davis (Curator of Photography, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, and Chair, Art Selection Committee, Hallmark Cards, Inc., both in Kansas City, Missouri) will lecture on Harry Callahan’s interest in the universal.
Harold Jones, (photographer, curator and educator, director of LIGHT Gallery, New York [1973-1975] and founding Director of the Center of Creative Photography [1975-1977], University of Arizona) will discuss the inception of LIGHT Gallery and how these three artists’s archives came to reside in Arizona.

Question and Answer Session with all symposium speakers.

Book Signing by Keith F. Davis and Britt Salvesen, authors of the exhibition’s accompanying catalog.

Juried Portfolio Share for local artists and photographers. Juried by Terry Etherton, owner of Etherton Gallery, Tucson. Symposium participants and audience members will attend. (University photography faculty, graduate students, undergraduates and artists using photography are encouraged to submit work to the Juried Portfolio Share. CLICK HERE, call 480-874-4641 or email laurenc@sccarts.org for submission guidelines.)

To purchase symposium tickets call the Box Office at 480-994-ARTS [2787]. $10 members; $15 nonmembers. Students free with ID, but must obtain comp ticket from the Box Office.

ALMOST SOLD OUT! Overflow Area to hear the lecture will be available after all tickets have been sold.

The At the Crossroads of American Photography: Callahan, Siskind, Sommer catalogue is available through the SMoCA Store and Radius Books.