Kevin Bubriski

Historically, New Mexico's cultural traditions, peoples, and landscapes have inspired photographers and artists, and Indigenous peoples throughout the Southwest have been some of the most photographed and documented people in the United States. Kevin Bubriski's photographs of Pueblo dances and ceremonies are part of this long tradition of image making and image taking. With the publication of this book, they become an act of reciprocity, returning to the peoples and communities from which they originated. --Matthew J. Martinez This book is a gift to New Mexicans, holding up a mirror for us to see ourselves back in the day. The New Mexicans, 1981-83 will also captivate those not acquainted with the state, providing insight into the eccentricities and cultural richness of northern New Mexico and the diverse characters who call it home.--Don J. Usner This remarkable visual record documents Kevin Bubriski's two-year stay in New Mexico in the early 1980s. As a filmmaking student and young photographer fresh out of the Peace Corps in Nepal, Bubriski fully immersed himself in this new, vibrant, and multifaceted place. From film school, he moved on to a job as still photographer on the set of the film The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez and then took on assignments as a local news photographer--work that would connect him to New Mexicans from all walks of life, both natives and newcomers to the state. With his camera always at the ready, Bubriski covered events from rodeos to mud wrestling matches to the solemn funeral rites of a murdered Santa Fe priest, always open to serendipitous encounters along the way. He followed several of New Mexico's notable politicians on the campaign trail, including Toney Anaya in his gubernatorial bid and a young Bill Richardson's congressional campaign. He also documents his extraordinary and insightful access to the residents of State Penitentiary of New Mexico, the local arts community, and public ceremonies and dances of the Northern Pueblos. With the fresh eye of a newcomer to the state who had already explored remote corners of the world, Bubriski has created a moving and evocative record of a moment in time in the northern reaches of the Land of Enchantment.

This book is a photographic documentation of Hispanic New Mexicans (Nuevomexicanos) taken between 1981-1983 in Albuquerque and Santa Fe and in several northern New Mexico villages. Kevin Bubriski, a New Englander, photographed people he met in their neighbourhoods, at weddings and fiestas, hanging out in parks and parades, in their cars, in front of churches, alone, together, young and old. Bubriski is invisible to us as he creates iconographic, and very personal, images in an age before selfies. Many of these photographs are timeless, while others seem to be from a time capsule of the early eighties in New Mexico. This collection will evoke nostalgia of the era and life in New Mexico "back in the day". There is also universality about the images and time period that will appeal to wider audiences.

From April to August 1961, recent Harvard graduate Michael Clark Rockefeller was sound recordist and still photographer on a remarkable multidisciplinary expedition to the Dani people of highland New Guinea. In five short months he produced a wonderful body of work, including over 4,000 black-and-white negatives. In this catalogue, photographer Kevin Bubriski explores Rockefeller's journey into the culture and community of the Dani and into rapport with the people whose lives he chronicled. The book reveals not only the young photographer's growing fluency in the language of the camera, but also the development of his personal way of seeing the Dani world around him. Although Rockefeller's life was cut tragically short on an expedition to the Asmat in the fall of 1961, his photographs are as vivid today as they were the moment they were made. Featuring over 75 photographs, this beautiful volume is the first publication of a substantial body of Michael Rockefeller's visual legacy. Rockefeller's extraordinary photographs reveal both the resilient spirit of the Dani people and the anthropological and aesthetic eye of a young man full of promise. In a Foreword, Robert Gardner provides a personal recollection of Michael Rockefeller's experience in the New Guinea highlands.