By Donna Tennant
Nuevo México Profundo: Rituals of an Indo-Hispano Homeland
Photographs by Miguel Gandert • Foreword by Helen R. Lucero
Award-winning photographer Miguel Gandert turns his lens on the mestizo peoples of the upper Rio Grande for his book, Nuevo México Profundo: Rituals of an Indo-Hispano Homeland. The collection of 130 black-and-white photographs focuses on sacred rituals and dances such as the Matachines conquest dance and the Comanches celebration. Accompanying the images are essays by Ramón A. Gutiérrez, Enrique R. Lamadrid, Lucy R. Lippard, and Chris Wilson. “These pictures are about the rituals of history,” writes Gutiérrez. “They are about memory. And most of all, they are about the ways religious beliefs and practices structure the course of life in a region not easily cut in half by a border.” An exhibition of Gandert’s photographs is on display through May 27 at the National Hispanic Cultural Center of New Mexico.
2000 Museum of New Mexico Press, Santa Fe, NM, in association with the National Hispanic Cultural Center of New Mexico, 180 pages, 130 black-and-white photographs, $50 hardbound (ISBN 0-89013-348-4), $29.95 softbound (ISBN 0-89013-349-2)
Hecho a Mano: The Traditional Arts of Tucson’s Mexican American Community
By James S. Griffith
Folklorist and anthropologist James S. Griffith celebrates the handmade arts of Tucson’s Mexican-American community in his latest book, Hecho a Mano. In addition to featuring traditional examples of folk art such as needlework and blacksmithing, Griffith expands his scope to include more unusual media, such as “low rider” cars. Some of the artists profiled include muralists David Tineo and Luis Mena, ornamental blacksmith William Flores, and paper flower designer Josefina Lizárraga. Illustrated throughout with color and black-and-white photographs, many by Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer José Galvez, the book also features a foreword by author Patricia Preciado Martin.
2000 University of Arizona Press, Tucson, AZ, 130 pages, 24 color photographs, 27 black-and-white photographs, $29.95 hardbound (ISBN 0-8165-1877-7) $17.95 softbound (ISBN 0-8165-1878-5)
Hard Pressed: 600 Years of Prints and Process
By David Platzker and Elizabeth Wyckoff
Though the Chinese developed printing techniques much earlier, printmaking first appeared in Western Europe in the 1400s. Since then, technical advances have dramatically changed the artform. This new book chronicles the artists and works that helped printmaking evolve from a way of disseminating information to the public to an artform in its own right. More than 150 illustrations, including preliminary drawings and printing plates, help explain the steps involved in creating a final image. Examples of boundary-breaking prints in a variety of media are shown, including woodcuts, etchings, engravings, lithographs, mezzotints, screenprints, photographs, and digital images. Among the more than 90 artists featured are Albrecht Dürer, Francisco Goya, Rembrandt van Rijn, and Pablo Picasso.
2000 Hudson Hills Press, New York, NY, 128 pages, 84 colorplates, 72 black-and-white illustrations, $45 hardbound (ISBN 1-55595-192-9)
Featured in February 2001