Discipline: Visual Art

Zeke Berman

Discipline: Visual Art
Region: New York, NY
MacDowell Fellowships: 1987, 1988, 1991, 1992, 1993

Zeke Berman has been making singular, studio-based photographs since the late 1970s, when, while recording his sculptures, his attention turned from objects to images. The formal range of his work, and his inventive use of materials such as string, clay, and ice is varied, original, and idiosyncratic. His photographs reflect a long-standing interest in the evolution of visual cognition, the mystery and paradox of optics, as well as finding an intersection between sculpture, photography, and drawing. If an artist can be said to possess esthetic values, his would best be described as epistemological. Berman’s work has been collected, exhibited and published widely by museums such as the Museum of Modern Art, Guggenheim, Metropolitan and Whitney Museum and The Art Institute of Chicago. His awards include Guggenheim, NEA, NYFA, and McDowell Colony and Yaddo Fellowships.

Studios

Nef

Zeke Berman worked in the Nef studio.

Nef Studio, the first entirely new studio built after 1937, was donated by esteemed photographer, explorer, author, and MacDowell Fellow Evelyn Steffanson Nef in 1992. Endowed funds for the studio’s maintenance in perpetuity and an annual Fellowship for photographers were given in addition to funds for construction. Mrs. Nef said she had known about MacDowell all her…

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