Brian Grogan

"Architecture, Artifacts, Structure, and Landscape:

The Photograph as Document"

July 27 thru Sept. 7, 2001

Reception: Saturday, Aug. 11, 2001, 5:30 8:30 PM

Ventilation Fans Wawona Tunnel, Yosemite National Park, 1991

A slightly different focus on photography is presented in this current exhibit at Viewpoint Gallery. Brian Grogan of El Portal, California produces photographs for historic documentation for federal and state agencies as well as private architectural, engineering and environmental firms. The photographs he is presenting at Viewpoint are representative of his visual exploration of the built environment, the cultural landscape, and human interaction with the natural landscape. The exhibit opens on July 27^th and will run through September 7^th. The Second Saturday Reception will be August 11th from 5:30 to 8:30 pm.

Brian Grogan (on right) at the Second Saturday Reception

Biography

Brian Grogan is the founder and director of Photography & Preservation Associates, a firm dedicated to historic documentation and the exploration of land use and preservation issues through contemporary photography. He produces photographs for historic documentation, research, and cultural mitigation for numerous federal and state agencies, and private architectural, engineering and environmental firms.

For the past ten years Mr. Grogan has worked extensively with the Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record Division of the National Park Service photographing historic structures in the western United States. He has contributed more than 3,000 photographs to the HABS/HAER collection of the United States Library of Congress.

The HABS/HAER projects have been a diverse representation of the cultural history and architectural and engineering legacy of the United States ranging from the documentation of the Folsom Powerhouse that provided the first electricity to Sacramento to photographs of early space age facilities at Edwards Air Force Base. Projects also include the documentation of army buildings at Crissy Field, the Presidio of San Francisco, which were demolished for the restoration of the Crissy Field wetlands and a comprehensive documentation of graffiti remnants from the American Indian occupation of Alcatraz. He has just completed a documentation of 15 historic bridges in Los Angeles for HAER and the Los Angeles Bureau of Engineering.

Mr. Grogan has been the project photographer for twelve of the Historic American Engineering Record National Park Service (NPS) Historic Roads & Bridges Program projects. HAER is undertaking a long-range documentation project for the NPS Roads & Bridges Program. This project is committed to the the collection and creation of data pertaining to all National Register eligible historic bridge structures maintained by the NPS. HAER has also been recording the transportation systems as a whole in relation to the natural environment of its setting. Mr. Grogan has been one of two prime photographers for this major HAER effort. In the course of this documentation Mr. Grogan has photographed a wide variety of bridges including masonry arch, reinforced concrete arch, metal truss, wooden truss (covered), suspension, cantilevered, 3 hinge-deck arch, welded span, and pin-connected as well as related bridge structures and road way features including retaining walls, culverts, drainage systems, guard rails and signage. The historic park roads survey also included HAER photographic documentation of highway tunnels and tunnel portals in Yosemite, Zion, Bryce and Mesa Verde Parks.

Selections from these photographs were exhibited in the summer and fall of 1997 at the National Building Museum, Washington, D.C. in the exhibition "Laying Lightly On the Land," the history of roads in the National Parks. In 2000 Mr. Grogan had photographs exhibited at the National Building Museum for a 30th anniversary retrospective of the work of the Historic American Engineering Record.

Recently Mr. Grogan completed a photographic commission of the architecture and landscape of Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, one of the oldest colleges in the United States. A portfolio of these photographs is now on permanent exhibit at the college.

Brian Grogan was the project director and chief photographer for the Yosemite Photographic Survey, a multi-year project that was established to document the cultural and natural landscape of Yosemite National Park in a collaborative effort of photographers and historians. The project was conceived and organized by Mr. Grogan in 1990 in response to the centennial anniversary of the park.

Mr. Grogan has lectured on photographic documentation for the Society for Industrial Archeology, the University of Southern California School of Architecture Historic Preservation program, the California Council or the Promotion of History, the California Preservation, and the California Studies Conference.

Brian Grogan lives in El Portal, California.

All images shown are copyrighted by the artist.

<< HOME

SVPAC is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) educational organization, donations are deductible to the full extent of the law.