Byrd Williams
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Byrd Williams IV
A fourth generation photographer, Byrd is best known for his urban work in the U.S. and Europe. He produces extremely detailed photographs, usually as triptychs, using a very large format view camera. Byrd is also currently working on a project about cultural violence and religion in Texas.
Byrd Williams has been teaching photography for 26 years and as chair was instrumental in developing the photography program at Collin College.
Williams is a published writer (Ledgendary Landmarks, Ortsbeschreibungen) and international artist whose work has been shown and collected at the Amon Carter Museum, Museum Fine Arts Houston, Tarrant County Court House, Stadtischen Museum Simeonstift of Trier Germany, Kunstlerhaus Schloss Balmoral of Bad Ems, Germany, and the Banque et Caisse D’ epargne de Letat collection, Luxembourge.
For the years 1997 and 2008 Byrd was an artist in residence in Bad Ems, Germany. His work on the civic use of German, French, Belgian, English and Dutch street corners was featured on television and exhibited in several west German cities in 1997 and 2007.
CULTURAL VIOLENCE
I have been thinking about this my whole life. There appears to be imprinting that lends itself to violent solutions later in life. Anthropologists refer to this as ‘nurture’ rather than ‘nature’. Guns and Texas have been paired in popular myth since before the battle of the Alamo. This perception of the rough and tough west has persisted through out the states history. American gun laws reflect the value we attach to owning, concealing and using efficient killing instruments. This unnatural love of handguns in particular, goes beyond hunting and gathering. Indeed, it has become the very core of justice and constitutional entitlement according to the powerful National Rifle Association lobby. One can, after all, readily buy meat anywhere in Texas these days. This leaves recreation as the driving force behind the shear quantity of weapons in our country: 250,000,000 by recent count. Couple this absurd availability with the paranoid tendencies brought on by 911 and throw in a healthy dose of childhood imprinting of violence in the bible belt and you have Texas.
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