Fred Lonidier
Professor Emeritus
Biography
Fred Lonidier studied at Yuba College and San Francisco State (graduate work in sociology and photography) before becoming a member of our graduate program. He joined the faculty in 1972. Lonidier's work deals with the sociological possibilities of photography applied to social change and has been exhibited at the Houston Center for Photography, the Oakland Museum, the Long Beach Museum, the San Francisco Art Institute, the Focus Gallery, the Kitchen, the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City, the Los Angeles Institute for Contemporary Art, the Whitney in New York, and the Friends of Photography in Carmel. He has also had exhibits in a number of union halls such as the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, ACTWU, SEIU, CWA, and Gallery 1199 of the NYC Hospital Workers Union. In 1983 he placed a large photo/text installation in the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council. He has been the guiding energy behind Labor Link TV which cablecasts on three channels in San Diego County. His work has recently turned toward cross-border labor struggles and solidarity between U.S. and Mexican workers. He had a show of this work at the University of San Diego in the fall of 1997. Selected reviews of his work include "Post-documentary," Diane Nuemaier, Afterimage, January, 1984; "Art & Ideology" catalog, Benjamin Buchloh, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York City, 1984; "Dismantling Modernism, Reinventing Documentary...," Allan Sekula, Photography Against the Grain: Essays and Photo Works 1973-1983, October, 1984; "Popular Expressions," Fred Pfeil, The Nation, February 14, 1987; "Toward a New Social Documentary," Grant Kester, Afterimage, March, 1987; "Living With Contradictions," Abigail Solomon-Godeau, in Universal Abandon?, Andrew Ross, ed., U of M Press, Minneapolis, MN, 1989; "Class Pictures: Teaching About Photography to Labor Studies Students," Fred Glass, Exposure, vol. 28, nos. 1/2, 1991 (photos); "A Sense of Positive Horizons: For Labor, About Labor, By Labor at SFAI," Barrett Watten, Artweek, July 9, 1992; "Rise of New Documentary Photography in the US," Shaohua Huang, People's Photography, Aug. 5 & 12, 1992, People's Rep. of China. Courses taught by Lonidier include Introduction to Photography, Photographic Strategies, Camera Techniques, Generating the Narrative, and Art and Politics.
From Fred Lonidier's "29 Arrests" Series, 1972.