Keith Dannemiller was born in Akron, Ohio on May 27, 1949, and educated there in Catholic elementary and high schools. He graduated from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee with a B.A. in Organic Chemistry. In 1976, after four years in San Francisco, he moved to Austin, Texas where he photographed for The Texas Observer, Third Coast and Texas Monthly. While living there, he began the first of many trips to the north of México, in the area around Espinazo, Nuevo Leon, where he documented the festival of the Niño Fidencio, a folk saint renowned in México during the 1920's. In 1987 he decided to live and work in México. A relationship that began with the Mexican photo agency Imagenlatina in May, 1987, resulted in two trips to the Middle East (1988 and 1989) to cover the Palestinian Intifada.
While currently independent, during the past 31 years he was associated at different times with two US photo agencies: Black Star and Saba. In Latin America, he has covered a wide variety of situations, ranging from Nicaraguan Recontras to street children in México City to life on the US-México border.
A recurring theme in his personal work is the effect on the country’s rich traditions while Mexican society constantly reshapes itself. Visual projects that have captured his interest include: a fundamentalist sect that uses exorcism to deal with social problems; portraits from the streets of Mexico City's Centro Historico; Danzón in public parks; the modern syncretic rituals associated with the growing cult to the Catholic saint, Jude Thaddeus; the struggles of Central American migrants in Mexico enroute to the United States; and currently, investigating the notion of ‘Home/Homeland’ by documenting the lives of the people who make up the Hispanic community in the town of Wilson, North Carolina, USA. His most recent book, Callegrafía, is a look at the intimate strangers who move through the streets of the Centro Histórico of Mexico City each day.
He lives with his wife in the Colonia Nápoles of Mexico City.
Publications
Newspapers and on-line : New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Houston Chronicle, Le Monde Diplomatique, The Guardian, Global Post, Al Jazeera America
Magazines: Time, Newsweek, New York Times Sunday Magazine, National Geographic, Vanity Fair, Forbes, Fortune, BusinessWeek, Bloomberg, Texas Monthly, ESPN Magazine, Marie Claire, The Economist
Books: Callegrafía. First book in the series, Efímero permanente: miradas contemporáneas al Centro Histórico, published by the Fideicomiso Centro Histórico, 2013
Opening Mexico: The Making of a Democracy. 2004. Sam Dillon and Julia Preston. (Selected photos for book illustration)
El Narco: Inside Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency (2012). Ioan Grillo. (Selected photos for book illustration)
Children of the Stone: The Power of Music in a Hard Land. Author: Sandy Tolan. 2015. (Selected photos of the book’s protagonist, a child of the Palestinian Intifada.)
Desplazamiento interno inducido por la violencia: una experiencia global, una realidad mexicana. 2015. Dra. Laura Rubio. Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México. (Selected photos for book illustration on the return of Ciudad Juárez ‘Juarochos’ to their homes in Veracruz state.)
Adiós TV: El final de la television analogica. 2015. (Selected images). Francisco Mata Rosas, Coordinator. México, UAM, Unidad Cuajimalpa,
Migración 2.0. 2017. (Selected images). Francisco Mata, Coordinator. Mexico, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM),.
Desplazamiento Ambiental: Experiencia Global, Realidad Mexicana, 2017. Dra. Laura Rubio. Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (Selected images on the effects of Hurricane Mitch in Nicaragua.)
Photographic Exhibitions (recent)
Curator: “Expo Fotoperiodismo 2011”. Nationwide photojournalism competition exhibited in the Centro de la Imagen, Mexico, DF and various other galleries throughout the country. Inauguration, March 2011.
One-person show: “Luz Translation”. Gallery Malafama, Mexico, DF. September/October 2007
Two-person show: “Disyuntivas y Coincidencias”. Facultad de Artes Visuales, Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León. Monterrey, N.L. October/November 2011
Group Show: “Somos/Soy”. Numerous galleries in Latin America and Europe. May 2011 through July 2012
Group Show: “Ey Familia: Danzón!”. Gallery Fundación Héctor Garcia, México, DF, October 2010.
Group Show: “II Bienal Fotográfica Hector Garcia”. Galería Fundación Héctor García, México, DF, Mayo 2015
Group Show: “Desplazamiento Interno Forzado. Una Dolorosa Realidad”. Museo Memoria y Tolerancia, México 2015, Mayo 2015.
Group multimedia presentation. “Calle Nuestra”. A photographic panorama from various cities in Latin America: Mexico City, Pachuca (Mexico); Caracas (Venezuela); Guayaquil, Quito (Ecuador); Sao Paulo, Recife (Brasil); Buenos Aires (Argentina). October 2015.
One-person show: “Callegrafía”, Galería Segundo Piso, León, Guanajuato. Mexico. September/October 2016. (As part of the Festival de Fotografía Internacional en León 2016)
One-person show: “Luz Translation”, Centro Cultural El Nigromante Bellas Artes, San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato. February 2 -- April 23, 2017.
One-person show: “Callegrafía”, Sala Guillermo Kahlo del Museo Archivo de la Fotografía. Ciudad de México, México. March 16 -- June 12, 2017
One-person show: “Intifada of the Stones”, Yasser Arafat Museum. Ramallah, Palestinian Occupied Territories. July 6 -- December 15, 2017
One-person show: “Testigo Transeúnte”, Sala Nacho López, Fototeca Nacional, Pachuca, Hidalgo, Mexico. November 16, 2017 -- January 21, 2018.
Artist-in-Residence. Eyes on Main Street Photography Festival. Wilson, North Carolina, USA. December 2017. Work made of daily life and inhabitants of Wilson, exhibited during the festival from April to July 2018.
Two-person exhibition: “Dos Miradas sobre Un Instante”, Galería Rubio, Mazatlán, Sinaloa, México. February 22 until April 7, 2018. Images that show two distinct visions of the Historic Center of Mexico City.
Two-person exhibition: “Dos Miradas sobre Un Instante”, Alley Cat Bookstore/Gallery, San Francisco, California, USA. May 5 until June 2, 2018. Images that show two distinct visions of the Historic Center of Mexico City.
Individual exposition: “Callegrafía”, Három Hét Galéria. As part of the Eleven Osz Fall Festival, Budapest, Hungary. September 2018.
Group exhibition, Residency Program of Eyes on Main Street. 18th Pingyao International Photography Festival (PIP), Pingyao, Shanxi, China. September 2018
Individual exposition: “Callegrafía, Redux”, Red Door Gallery, Budapest, Hungary. March 2020. New color work from Mexico City’s Centro Histórico..
Photographic Collections
Visions of Texans Photographs. The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin
The Wittliff Collection. Southwestern & Mexican Photography Collection
Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas
The Bancroft Library, Latin Americana Collection, University of California, Berkeley
Cushing Memorial Library and Archives, University Libraries, Texas A&M University,
College Station, TX
Special Collections/Center for Southwest Research, University of New Mexico LIbraries, Albuquerque, NM
Keith Dannemiller
Pennsylvania 248, #5 Colonia Nápoles
Mexico, DF
+52-1-55-2541-5192 kdannemiller1@mac.com www.keithdannemiller.com
