Burchfield Penney pays tribute to Jackson in the UB Reporter

Burchfield Penney Art Center pays tribute to Jackson by Sue Wuetcher

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The Burchfield Penney Art Center will pay tribute to UB faculty member Bruce Jackson on May 10 as part of its Second Fridays series.

“An Evening with Bruce Jackson” will take place from 8-10 p.m. in the center at 1300 Elmwood Ave. on the campus of Buffalo State College.

The program will include a performance of “A Garland for Bruce” by David Felder, SUNY Distinguished Professor and Birge-Cary Chair in Composition in the UB Department of Music. The performance will feature Jonathan Golove, UB associate professor of music performance, cello, and J.T. Rinker, managing director, The Robert and Carol Morris Center for 21st Century Music, electronics.

The world premiere of “A Garland for Bruce” took place on Sept. 21 at UB as part of a special tribute honoring Jackson’s life’s work and accomplishments hosted by the Office of the Vice President for Research and Economic Development.

Following the musical performance at the Burchfield Penney, “Death Row,” the 1979 film about daily life on Death Row in Texas by Jackson and Diane Christian, SUNY Distinguished Professor in the UB Department of English, will be screened.

An exhibition of Jackson’s photographs, “Being There: Bruce Jackson, Photographs 1962-2012,” currently is on view in the East Gallery of the Burchfield Penney through June 16. It features more than 300 works from his extensive photographic archives of landscapes, prison life, structures and people.

Jackson will sign copies of the book produced in conjunction with the exhibition from 7-7:45 p.m.

Admission to “An Evening with Bruce Jackson” is free for members; a donation is suggested for ‘not yet’ members.

SUNY Distinguished Professor and James Agee Professor of American Culture in the UB Department of English, Jackson is an acclaimed folklorist, ethnographer, documentary filmmaker and photographer. A UB faculty member since 1967, he is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1971 and a Grammy nomination in 1974. The French government has twice honored him: in 2002 as Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and in 2012 as Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite.

He also has served as president of the American Folklore Society and chairman of the Board of Trustees of the American Folklife Center in the Library of Congress.

Jackson has written or edited 32 books—most recently “Inside the Wire: Photographs from Texas and Arkansas Prisons” (University of Texas Press, 2013)—and his photographs have been exhibited at venues that include the Albright-Knox Art Gallery; Galleri View, Oslo; and Circolo Gianni Bosio, Rome. His work is part of the permanent collections of the Albright Knox, George Eastman House, Bibliothèque national de France and the Library of Congress. In collaboration with Christian, he also has created three feature-length and three short documentaries.