American, b. 1956
Sponsored by a fellowship from The Southwest Center at the University of Arizona, Michael Berman began a seven year project photographing the desert along the southwestern Arizon/Mexico border, called El Gran Desierto.
He has said of the desert, "It is a landscape most people find barren and drive by. I love looking at these places. They are a kind of puzzle. A landscape of the imagination. They have lost their soil. Humans have churned it, stripped it, and let it wash away. What it could be, what it once was, is a beautiful mystery."
Berman has received fellowships and awards from the Wurlitzer Foundation and the Arizona Commission of the Arts. His work has been widely exhibited throughout the country, and his photographs are in the collections major institutions including of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, the Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, the Tucson Museum of Art, Yale University Art Gallery, Smith College Museum, and the Cleveland Museum of Art. He currently lives in Southwest New Mexico.
Sponsored by a fellowship from The Southwest Center at the University of Arizona, Michael Berman began a seven year project photographing the desert along the southwestern Arizon/Mexico border, called El Gran Desierto.
He has said of the desert, "It is a landscape most people find barren and drive by. I love looking at these places. They are a kind of puzzle. A landscape of the imagination. They have lost their soil. Humans have churned it, stripped it, and let it wash away. What it could be, what it once was, is a beautiful mystery."
Berman has received fellowships and awards from the Wurlitzer Foundation and the Arizona Commission of the Arts. His work has been widely exhibited throughout the country, and his photographs are in the collections major institutions including of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, the Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, the Tucson Museum of Art, Yale University Art Gallery, Smith College Museum, and the Cleveland Museum of Art. He currently lives in Southwest New Mexico.