Spring 2006


March 10 - April 30
John Bernhard and Robert A. Schaefer Jr.

Part of Fotofest

Reception with the artists Friday March 11, 6pm - 9pm

Transition: Photographs by John Bernhard and Robert A. Schaefer, Jr.
at DeFrog Gallery during Fotofest in Houston, Texas.
Sponsored in part by the Consulate of Switzerland
 
 
 
For John Bernhard Transition deals with China and its transition from a third world nation to a very modern and powerful part of the world community.  Robert A. Schaefer, Jr. explores a more private transition being totally unacknowledged in relation to his German family to discovering and documenting its diverse sides: the paternal side with members in Hitler’s SS Troops during W W II and maternal side being Jewish. 
 
In his series of China, Bernhard talks about being fascinated with the Chinese culture and the tolerance of dealing with the outdated system of communism while capitalism dictates the evolution they are currently experiencing.  His semi-abstract cityscapes and street scenes  incorporate such things as the stone wall texture of a Buddhist temple which appears like a ghost symbolizing spiritual freedom.  In this body of work reality vanishes and dissipates – usually intentional, sometimes unintentional.
 
Schaefer never knew much about being German while growing up in North Alabama.  However, while living in Germany in the late 1970’s he found out that the paternal side of his Father’s family – the Schaefers who had stayed in Germany, had had members in Hitler’s SS Troops.  After he moved back to the US, he found out from his Aunt that the maternal side from Bresslau had been Jewish.  The exhibition deals with a juxtaposition of images representing both the German side and the Jewish side – sometimes they overlap and always there is the question of how this could have happened.
 
 
John Bernhard was born in Geneva, Switzerland and after an extensive trip to the U.S. emigrated to Texas in 1980. In 1984 he started his own graphic design and photography business in Houston.  His work has won numerous awards and has been exhibited and published throughout the United States and Europe. In addition, his photographs are included in museums and private collections.  He has exhibited at the Houston Center for Photography, the Millioud Gallery in Houston, Gallery Europa, Krisal Galerie in Geneva, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and Fotokunst in Odense, Denmark. In 2000 he had a retrospective at the Centre Culturel in Belgium, anexhibition on Nicaragua at the Wurzer Gallery in Houston, and in 2004 he had a retrospective exhibition at the Museum of the Swiss Abroad in Geneva, Switzerland.  He has had 6 books published about his work.  His most recent book “Diptych” emphasizes the correlation of two images with visual duplicity.  
 
Robert A. Schaefer, Jr. was born and raised in Cullman, Alabama, and after living in Munich, Germany in the late 1970’s and had exhibitions in Amerika Hauses (cultural part of American Embassy) in Munich, Hannover, Hamburg and Frankfurt.  His work was exhibited with David Hockney at the Kulturhaus in Graz, Austria. He moved to New York City in 1981 where he continues to live and work.  Schaefer is an adjunct professor of photography at New York University and also teaches at The New School as well as Pratt Institute.  Apple, Inc. invited him to set up a series of seminars instructing fine-art photographers different ways to employ Mac Computers in their work in the late 1990’s.  Apple was also one of the sponsors for Schaefer’s 25 Year Retrospective RASJR25 held at the Huntsville Museum of Fine Arts 1999 – 2000 in Huntsville, Alabama.  One of
his more recent exhibitions was last year at the Silver Eye Center for Photography in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Titled City Blues it consisted of cyanotype prints of cityscape images. Schaefer also writes about photography for Fotophile Magazine based in New York City, The Photo Review based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and the on-line publication Double Exposure (www.photoworkshop.com).