BAMPFA is proud to announce the establishment of The Baum: An Emerging American Photographer Award, and the 2003 recipient, Luis Gispert. Through the generosity of Glenn and April Bucksbaum, with special support from The Martin Bucksbaum Family Foundation, this $10,000 cash grant honors a talented and innovative photographer at a critical moment in the development of his or her career. Twenty-five curators from across the U.S. and one established artist each nominated two photographers for the award. The Brooklyn-based Gispert was selected by a jury panel that included Heidi Zuckerman Jacobson, BAMPFA Phyllis Wattis MATRIX Curator; Cornelia Butler, Associate Curator at MOCA, Los Angeles; and Ralph Rugoff, Executive Director of the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts in San Francisco. In addition to the monetary gift, the work of the Baum awardee will be presented in a Theater Gallery exhibition, and one photograph will enter the BAMPFA collection. Opening September 25, Gispert's show will feature his most recent photographs, which convey a baroque and surreal sensibility, turning ordinary people into dramatic and costumed figures, and domestic settings into elaborately staged interior tableaux.
