History of the Future | La Historia del Futuro

History of the Future, featuring the photographs of Michael Berman and Julián Cardona who, for more than thirty years, have focused on the people and places of the desert southwest and the lands where Mexico and the United States come together. Curated by Nancy Sutor, the exhibition unfolds their multiple collaborations of the last seven years.

Michael Berman wanders the borderlands of U.S. and Mexico exploring issues—mining, grazing, logging, and population growth—that impact the land. His large-format black and white digital prints embrace a modernist idiom: fragments of white plastic tangled in desert vegetation slowly form in one’s mind into remains of the water bottle it once was. The large prints allow the viewer to be surrounded by the image; be it a monumental rock face or a broken doll in the sand, one is immersed in the formal elements of the piece.

A resident of Juarez, Mexico, Julián Cardona is clearly familiar with the desperation—fueled by murders, rapes, and disappearances—with which his subjects live. True to the documentary tradition, his black and white photographs record social and political situations with the aim of conveying information. Yet images of rallies, migrants, and minutemen also convey the honor and humanity