Experimental Seeing: Russell Lee’s Pedagogical Legacy

The artists are MFA graduates of the Department of Art and Art History, with degrees ranging from 2005 to 2026. They include Bucky Miller, Helen E. Jones, Santiago Forero Ramírez, Tova Katzman and Dave Woody. The show is co-curated by Teresa Hubbard, a UT photography professor, and Dr. Jana La Brasca of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Their work spans nine US states and four countries.

The work stays rooted in photographic methods and materials, then moves into print, sculpture, installation and video. The show begins with Russell Lee, the photographer who built UT's first photography program in the 1960s. He called his curriculum "experimental courses in seeing" rather than photography classes. A Lee image of Homer Tate, from his Farm Security Administration work, is part of the exhibition's story. The Visual Arts Center is a 13,000-square-foot gallery in the Art Building, with concrete barrel-vaulted ceilings and several separate rooms.

This is a survey of what one university program has produced over six decades, seen through 25 different practices. It suits anyone curious about contemporary photography beyond the framed print. It also gives some context on Lee, whose Texas photographs are better known than his teaching. The gallery sits on the UT campus just north of the football stadium.