Exhibition: Beautiful Decay, Visions of Cuba / Hermosa Decadencia, Visiones de Cuba – Photographs by Chip Cooper, Julio Larramendi and Jim Harrison III
Dates: September 30 – October 15, 2016
Location: Harrison Galleries, 2315 University Boulevard, Tuscaloosa
Artists’ Reception: Friday, September 30, 6-9 pm
First Friday Reception: October 7, 6-9 pm
In preparation for The University of Alabama’s Cuba Week, Harrison Galleries in Tuscaloosa presents photography by Chip Cooper, Julio Larramendi and Jim Harrison III from their recent travels together in Cuba. Beautiful Decay, Visions of Cuba / Hermosa Decadencia, Visiones de Cuba opens Friday, September 30 and will run through Saturday, October 15, 2016. The approximately 180 images reveal a view of the Cuban urban and rural landscape, people and details, that only these three experienced photographers and friends are able to capture. An artists’ reception will be held Friday, September 30 from 6-9 pm and the exhibition will be the featured exhibition for First Friday, October 7. The exhibition is presented by UA Honors College.
Chip Cooper is an award-winning photographer who has shown his work nationally and internationally. Cooper was the former Director of Photography for The University of Alabama for 33 years and is now artist in residence in UA’s Honors College. Cooper’s work is in many museums and in private and corporate collections. He co-authored Old Havana / La Habana Vieja – Spirit of the Living City / El espíritu de la ciudad viva with Cuban photographer, Néstor Martí. Cooper and Julio Larramendi have a forthcoming book of their photographs, Campesinos: Inside the Soul of Cuba, in 2017, from the University of Alabama Press. Cooper’s other books of photography include Hunting the Southern Tradition; Alabama Memories; Silent in the Land; Common Threads; Crimson: The University Of Alabama, Charlie Lucas: The Tin Man. He won an award of excellence for his book, Silent in the Land, from Communication Arts Magazine and is a past recipient of an Artist Fellowship from the Alabama State Council on the Arts.
Julio Larramendi is a research associate for the National Museum of Natural History of Cuba, a professor and visiting artist in residence at The University of Alabama’s Honors College, and the editorial director of Ediciones Polymita. He was the founder and first president of the department of Latin American photography at the José Martí International Institute of Journalism. His work has been featured in more than fifty books. Larramendi has had more than one hundred solo exhibitions and sixty group exhibits across thirty countries and various Cuban cities, and he is the recipient of more than a dozen international awards.
Jim Harrison III is a native of Tuscaloosa and owner and director of Harrison Galleries-Fine Art & Photography. Actively involved in the West Alabama arts community for many years, he also devotes time and energy at the state level as a member of the Alabama State Council on the Arts and past chairman. A student of photography since high school, Harrison retired from the family retail drug business and traveled the western United States doing landscape and archaeological photography. In 2001, he acquired the old Central Drug store in downtown Tuscaloosa, and converted it into an art gallery. His Berlin Wall Series has been exhibited at the Rosa Parks Museum in Montgomery, the Arts Council Gallery at the Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center and is currently on exhibit at the Julio Larramendi Gallery in Havana, Cuba.
Harrison Galleries is located at 2315 University Boulevard in downtown Tuscaloosa and is open Monday through Friday, 12 noon to 5:00 pm, and by appointment: (205) 464-0054.
For more information contact: Jim Harrison III, (205) 464-0054.