William Christenberry / Photographs at UMMA

Tuesday, 01 April 2008 23:44

Ann Arbor, MI - Since the early 1960s, William Christenberry has returned to Hale County, Alabama, where he spent summers as a child, to document the vernacular architecture, landscape, signage, country churches, and graveyards of the region and capture their transformation over time.

In faithfully depicting the particular, Christenberry unsentimentally grapples with the universal themes of place, time, memory, and loss.   Although best known for his pioneering work in color photography, the artist is renowned for using an array of media, including sculpture, painting, drawing, and assemblage. This exhibition brings together never-before-seen photographs, including some of his earliest Brownie photographs along with large-format camera work, along with three vintage signs and one piece of sculpture.

Aperture, a not-for-profit organization devoted to photography and the visual arts, has organized this traveling exhibition and produced  the accompanying publication.

The Ann Arbor presentation is made possible in part by The University of Michigan Health System, the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, and an anonymous gift made in recognition of the patient care and  important work of Dr. Angela Kucek and the UM Cancer Center.

UMMA OFF/SITE, 1301 South University (at South Forest), Ann Arbor, MI. On exhibition April 5 through June 1, 2008.

Open Tue, Fri, Sat, and Sun 11 am to 6 pm; Wed and Thu, 11 am to 9pm. - *Admission is free. Information:  734.763.UMMA; www.umma.umich.edu