The 4th Biennial Reva & David Logan PhotoBook Symposium

Saturday April 12, 2025, 9:30am – 5:00pm PDT
University of California, Berkeley, International House
2299 Piedmont Ave, Berkeley, CA 94720

Aperture Foundation Executive Director Sarah Meister at the 3rd Biennial Reva and David Logan Photo Book Symposium, 2023

The Reva & David Logan Book Symposium, a gathering of photographers, scholars, students, and collectors dedicated to the art of the published photograph, will take place on April 12, 2025, at International House, University of California, Berkeley.

Launched in 2017, this biennial event is supported by an endowment at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, which established a permanent professorship in photojournalism and funds exhibitions in the School’s gallery. The Symposium also complements the Logan Photo Book Collection at The Bancroft Library, a significant archive that brought the late David Logan’s extraordinary photography book collection to UC Berkeley.

After a brief pause in 2021, the Symposium made a successful return in 2023 and continues this year with an outstanding lineup of guest speakers, including Nelson Chan, Maggie Dethloff, Ph.D., Matt Eich, Katy Grannan, Christine Hult-Lewis, Ken Light, Shana Lopes, Ph.D., Richard Misrach, Philip Montgomery, Bill Owens, Kristine Potter, Mark Steinmetz, Lisa Sutcliffe, Alex Webb, and Rebecca Norris Webb.

As part of the symposium join us for a very special open house at the Bancroft Library April 11, 2025, 1-4 p.m.. Visitors will have the opportunity to see important, rare, beautiful, and provocative photo books. Explore early canonical photo books from the Reva and David Logan Photobook Collection, along with newer titles from the Art History/Classics Library’s collections donated by Richard Sun.

RESERVE YOUR SPOT

SESSIONS

09:30 am – 09:45 a.m

09:45 am – 10:00 am

10:00 am – 11:00 am

11:00 am – 12:30 pm

12:30 pm – 01:30 pm

01:30 pm – 02:30 pm

02:30 pm – 03:45 pm

04:00 pm – 05:30 pm

05:30 pm – 06:30 pm

Opening Remarks, by Ken Light, Reva and David Logan Professor of Photojournalism, UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism

The Reva & David Logan Photo Book Collection Bancroft Library, Christine-Hult Lewis, Interim Pictorial Curator, UC Berkeley Bancroft Library

Fotovision Endowment Lecture with Richard Misrach

The Social Document with Mark Steinmetz and Philip Montgomery, moderated by Lisa Sutcliffe

Lunch break

Indie Book Scene, with Matt Eich and Bill Owens, moderated by Nelson Chan

Photo Book Collaboration with Alex Webb & Rebecca Norris Web, moderated by Shana Lopes

The American Landscape with Kristine Potter and Katy Grannan, moderated by Maggie Dethloff

Book signings and sales

FOTOVISION ENDOWMENT LECTURER

Richard Misrach
Photographer/Educator

Richard Misrach (b.1949) is considered one of the most influential photographers of his generation, instrumental in pioneering the use of color photography and large-scale format in the 1970s. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1971 with a BA in Psychology. For over 50 years, Misrach has photographed the dynamic landscape of the American West through an environmentally aware and politically astute lens. His visually seductive, large-scale color vistas powerfully document the devastating ecological effects of human intervention, industrial development, nuclear testing and petrochemical pollution on the natural world. His best known and ongoing epic series, Desert Cantos, comprises 40 distinct but related groups of pictures that explore the complex conjunction between mankind and nature. Otherworldly images of desert seas, rock formations, and clouds are juxtaposed with unsettling scenes of desert fires, nuclear test sites, and animal burial pits. Recent chapters capture the highly charged political climate following the 2016 US presidential election through photographs of spray-painted graffiti messages scrawled on abandoned buildings and remote rocky outcroppings in desolate areas of the Desert Southwest.

Other bodies of work include Golden Gate, a careful study of times of day, weather, and light around San Francisco’s famed bridge; On the Beach, aerial views of individuals and groups against a backdrop of water and sand; Notations, ravishing landscapes and seascapes in a reversed color spectrum; Destroy This Memory, a haunting document shot with a 4-megapixel pocket camera of graffiti found in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; and Petrochemical America, an in-depth examination of petrochemical pollution along the Mississippi River produced in collaboration with landscape architect Kate Orff.

PRESENTERS

Nelson Chan
Artist/Educator/Publisher
TIS Books

Christine Hult-Lewis
Curator/Educator/Historian
The Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley

Philip Montgomery
Photographer

Lisa Sutcliffe
Curator, Department of Photographs
Metropolitan Museum of Art

Maggie Dethloff, Ph.D.
Assistant Curator of Photography and New Media, Cantor Arts Center

Ken Light
Photographer/Educator
UC Berkeley

Bill Owens
Photographer

Alex Webb
Artist

Matt Eich
Artist/Educator/Publisher
Little Oak.PRESS

Shana Lopes, Ph.D.
Assistant Curator of Photography
SFMOMA

Kristine Potter
Artist

Rebecca Norris Webb
Artist

Katy Grannan
Photographer/Filmmaker

Richard Misrach
Photographer/Educator

Mark Steinmetz
Artist/Educator

ABOUT THE REVA & DAVID LOGAN BOOK SYMPOSIUM

The Reva & David Logan Book Symposium brings together photographers, academics, students and collectors to celebrate the published photograph. The biennial event, which launched in 2017, is provided under an endowment at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism that established a permanent professorship in photojournalism and funds exhibits in the J-School’s Gallery. The first Logan Professor is award-winning documentary photographer and the Reva and David Logan Professor of Photojournalism Ken Light.

The events complement the Logan Photo Book Collection at the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley, which brought the late David Logan’s exceptional collection of photography books to the campus.

ABOUT THE JOURNALISM SCHOOL’S CENTER FOR PHOTOGRAPHY

The Center for Photography at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, founded in 1996, teaches photojournalism and social documentary photography. The Center routinely exhibits world-class photographers in the halls of the Journalism School, and its public events have brought distinguished photojournalists such as Marc Riboud and Sebastião Salgado to Berkeley. It has published four books with University of California Press, and the School has self-published eight student titles. Its annual magazine “realeyes,” showcasing the work of student photographers, recently marked its 20th anniversary.