HCP Member show open Friday

The Houston Center for Photography has their annual membership exhibition which opens this Friday. This year´s exhibition was juried by Katherine Ware, Curator of Photography at the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe.

Many of the photographers in the show are engaged in work about assessing our lives now, marked by a time of transition and change. They are composing little love songs to that which is disappearing or to that which is proliferating. My sense is that they are seeking to understand and accept more than to criticize, perhaps with a little sadness and sometimes with humor. Farmers, ranchers, truckers, and itinerant preachers are all a lot less common than cubicle workers these days. A roadside mailbox, marked with the names of successive occupants, is a reminder of a time when the postal service was our primary means of communication with those at a distance. Now a profusion of towers and wires and invisible signals keep us connected. Unfortunately, our efforts to dominate the natural world have resulted in some ridiculous and impoverished landscapes. The sight of a crazily pruned tree marooned in concrete is a normal sight for most of us. Fortunately, the camera can sometimes use such raw material to create something of compositional grace and meaning. Our interiors also appear sterile and unimaginative in this selection, but the impulse to personalize everything remains rampant for teenage girls.

I was able to preview the show this week and it is one of the most cohesive group shows I've seen at HCP.

Opening reception, July 10, 2009 from 6 - 8 p.m. Show runs through July 10 - August 23, 2009

Tu-Anh Pham
Pink Socks and House Slippers
2009