About Bruce Berman

     Bruce Berman has been a professional photographer for over four decades. He works in what some have called, “The Concerned Photographer,” style of photography, but brings a poets vibe to his images. His initial documentary projects were in Chicago where he photographed Appalachian migrants to the big city, Black Panthers during the tumultuous 1960’s and the gritty street life of Chicago in its Rust Belt years.

     His main work for the past forty years has concentrated on the United States/Mexico border, particularly the narrow stretch of land that encompasses El Paso, Texas and Juarez, Mexico. He also “plows” the southern New Mexico landscape, its people and the vast mysterious lands of West Texas. 
     After coming back from one of his earliest forays on Alameda Street on El Paso’ south side, in 1980, Berman wrote in his journal, “…I have seen a new world. It is both physical fact and mythical idea. It is a place with a line drawn through it and on each side of that line there are metaphoric mirrors that are reflecting back at each other, perhaps distorting each other, perhaps magnifying each other. It is the US/Mexican border. I will make my stand here. I will try to ‘give face,’ to this place so others can know it, perhaps, even, so those who live in it will know it more deeply.”

     The aggregate result of that effort resides in two main bodies of work:  The Border Project: 1985-2007, and Juárez: Cartel War Years (2007-2011) .
    Additionally -concurrently- he is a chronicler of the disappearing lands beyond cities. He calls this series The Funklands, and notes, “Nothing is just laying around anymore. It’s scooped up, trucked away, rebuilt and becomes a mega buck treasure. My treasure has been the texture of the land and the stuff laying around that attests to who was on that land before… well.. before the homogenization of America.”

     Berman lives and works deep in the borderlands of El Paso and Juárez, three blocks from the international bridge that connects Juarez and El Paso, surrounded by and isolated in the the vast lands of West Texas and northern Chihuahua. He refers to this as the “City-State of No Man’s Land.”

     Berman continues to cover his “beat,” for major publications throughout the world and for his own book publishing enterprise. The Border Blog Press. His recent book, Walking Juárez is a compilation of photographs and stories covering the years 1975-2018.

     Since 2008, Berman has added “Professor” to his name. He now teaches photojournalism at New Mexico State University (NMSU), 50 miles north of the El Paso/ Juárez  ports of entry, in Las Cruces, NM. His teaching concentration is on Documentary Photojournalism and multimedia reporting. He still does occasional assignments and personal documentary work but spends equal time “Passing the torch,” he says.
Lately Berman has concentrated on doing books: Walking Juárez, 2017, Cutting the wire, 2019 and his newest, BACKLAND, 2022.

Many of his students don’t know about the border too much, but for the most part are of it. The G Generation, he says, “… are the hope of photojournalism, and maybe the world.”
He thinks working with them is his best project ever.

About the Website

     The Border Blog covers the news, opinions and culture of the 2000 mile border of Mexico and the United States, concentrating on the epicenter of El Paso and Juarez. The Border Blog is not meant to be a news source as much as it is meant to be a news “feel.”
     Another “border,” of interest to Berman is less obvious, the border between The Grid (his descriptor) and  and those on the margins, unwilling or unable to keep up with “development,” and “progress.”

     The site is a collaborative project. Besides Bruce Berman, who acts as editor and photographer and sometimes writer, the staff includes writer and painter, Juarez native and resident, Nathan Zarate, and, Beatriz Andino Zamora, a poet and writer from Zacatecas, Mexico. Zarate and Zamora post occasional articles concerning the politics and history of Mexico, in general and La Frontera, in particular. The site is always appreciative of the creative inspiration, brilliant chutzpah and deep goodwill -as well as extensive Web skills- of Manuel Rivera, a fronterizo “to the bone.”

     Contributions to the site are welcome. Diverse viewpoints will be cherished. The site’s point of view and orientation will be no mystery to its readers, however, there will always be plenty of room and appreciation for other voices as long as they are informed, well articulated and sincere and fueled by passion tempered by reason.

Sculptor; Born July 30, 1940; Died June 13, 2006

Luis Jimenez, a successful but often controversial sculptor, has died after being struck by a falling part of one of his works.
Authorities described the incident as an industrial accident. A segment of a sculpture came loose while it was being moved with a hoist at Jimenez’s New Mexico studio on Tuesday.

It struck the artist, pinning him against a steel support. The 65-year-old sculptor was taken to a hospital, where he was later pronounced dead.
“Luis Jimenez’s loss to the United States, to New Mexico, to the Chicano community, is great,” his friend David Hall told Albuquerque TV station KRQE.
“He was an icon, he was a very famous and well-respected artist. We will dearly miss him.”
Jimenez, a native of El Paso, Texas, was known for his large and colourful fibreglass sculptures that depicted fiesta dancers, a mourning Aztec warrior, steelworkers and illegal immigrants. His work often started arguments and spurred emotions. “It is not my job to censor myself,” Jimenez once said. “An artist’s job is to constantly test the boundaries.” Jimenez’s Vaquero and Plaza de Los Lagartos sculptures became civic landmarks in El
Paso, where he grew up learning to paint and fashion large works out of metal in his father’s sign shop.
“I think Luis shared this border region with the world. Those images will continue to live on,” El Paso art gallery owner Adair Margo said. “You look at the images he left us, and you realise he was a voice that mattered, that
gave form to this region and communicated it with people.”
Jimenez studied fine arts at the University of Texas in Austin and spent time working in New York. In 1969, he created Man on Fire, a sculpture of a man in flames that drew its inspiration both from Buddhist monks in South
Vietnam who burned themselves and the Mexican story of Cuauhtemoc, set on fire by Spanish conquerors. The sculpture was displayed at the Smithsonian Museum.
Jimenez won numerous awards for his work. More recently, he completed a mud casting of firefighters and three fibreglass flames as part of a memorial for Cleveland. He was also working on a piece that was destined for Denver International Airport.
Sculptor; Born July 30, 1940; Died June 13, 2006