Louis Carlos Bernal Monografia

Newly released, “Louis Carlos Bernal: Monografía” is a landmark survey of one of the most significant American photographers of the twentieth century.

Best known for his intimate portrayals of barrio communities of the Southwest United States, Bernal made photographs in the late 1970s and ’80s that draw upon the resonance of Catholicism, Indigenous beliefs, and popular practices tied to the land.

For Bernal, photography was a potent tool in affirming the value of individuals and communities who lacked visibility and agency. Photographing the interiors of homes and their inhabitants, Bernal viewed these spaces as rich with personal, cultural, and spiritual meaning, and his unforgettable photographs express a vision of ‘la vida cotidiana’—everyday life—as a state of grace.

Fully bilingual in English and Spanish, “Monografía” is the first major scholarly account to illuminate Bernal’s impact on American art history.

Copublished by Aperture and the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson.

Contributors:

Louis Carlos Bernal (born in Douglas, Arizona, 1941; died in Tucson, 1993) was a pioneering Chicano photographer active in the last quarter of the twentieth century, maturing as an artist in the wake of the 1970s civil rights era. After completing his MFA at Arizona State University in 1972, he joined the faculty of Pima Community College in Tucson, where he developed and led its photography program, and remained for the duration of his career. The Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona, Tucson, preserves the Louis Carlos Bernal Archive, including fine prints, project records, correspondence, and clippings.

Elizabeth Ferrer is a writer, curator, and arts activist. She is the former vice president of contemporary art at BRIC in Brooklyn. Ferrer is the author of Latinx Photography in the United States: A Visual History (2021) and curator of the traveling exhibition of Bernal’s work from the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, set to open in 2024.

Rebecca Senf is chief curator at the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson. She is author of Reconstructing the View: The Grand Canyon Photographs of Mark Klett and Byron Wolfe (2012), Betsy Schneider: To Be Thirteen (2017), Making a Photographer: The Early Work of Ansel Adams (2020), and editor of Richard Avedon: Relationships (2022).

Duncan Whyte is an independent graphic designer from London, living and working in France. His most recent work includes the first volume of Somnyama Ngonyama (Aperture, 2018) and Flint Is Family in Three Acts by LaToya Ruby Frazier (2022) and Baldwin Lee (2022), both of which were shortlisted for Paris Photo–Aperture PhotoBook of the Year.