As participants in the FOTOSEPTIEMBRE USA Festival since 2002, The Witte Museum, as is its mission, has always excelled in presenting quality exhibits, vintage and contemporary, that are culturally and contextually relevant to the South Texas region. For the 2008 Festival, the museum is hosting La Cultura Trasciende Fronteras: A Personal Portrait of Tejanos and Mexicanos, a retrospective of selected images by San Antonio photographer and gallery owner, Al Rendon. Curated by Bruce Shackelford, the exhibit, on display in the museum’s Focus Gallery, depicts Rendon’s perspectives of, and involvement with, the Mexican-American experience, and the different communities that are defined by the cultural, social and economic aspects of this experience.

The Witte Museum. Main entrance on Broadway Avenue, on the Eastern edge of Brackenridge Park.

Featured photographer, Al Rendon.

Partial view of the exhibit from the front of the gallery.

Title board and partial view of the exhibit.

Partial view of Al Rendon’s exhibit in the front gallery.

Partial view of the exhibit in the rear gallery.

Partial view of the exhibit in the rear gallery.

View from the rear gallery.

Al Rendon at the lectern discussing his work.

View of the lecture from the rear of the auditorium. 

Curator Bruce Shackelford’s segment of the lecture.

View from the side of the auditorium.

Bruce Shackelford, Exhibit Curator; Marise McDermott, Witte Museum President and CEO; Al Rendon; Mimi Quintanilla, Witte Museum Director.

Liz Rendon, Al Rendon, and paterfamilias Enrique Rendon.

David Zamora Casas and Joan Frederick striking a pose in homage to Al Rendon’s portrait of Selena.

Visitors at the exhibit.

Nancy Fullerton, San Antonio Museum of Art Curator, and undisputed Queen of FOTOSEPTIEMBRE USA Opening Receptions (David Rubin, the other royal contender, suspended his campaign due to a current malaise, severely handicapping his odds for nomination… sound familiar?), posing next to Al Rendon’s portrait of his father, master wood-worker Enrique Rendon.

Exhibit title board.