A Freeway's Concrete Certainty : About the Artists : Juan Delgado + Thomas McGovern

Juan Delgado is Professor Emeritus in the English Department at California State University, San Bernardino, where, in addition to his professorial duties, he chaired the English and Communication Studies Departments and served as the university's interim provost. His collections of poetry include Green Web (1994), published by the University of Georgia Press; El Campo (1998), a collaboration with the Chicano painter Simon Silva and published by Capra Press; and Rush of Hands (2003), published by the University of Arizona Press. His most recent book, Vital Signs (2013), was a collaboration with photographer Thomas McGovern and won the Before Columbus Foundation's American Book Award. In collaboration with Thomas McGovern, they have exhibited their photopoetic artwork at the Peppers Gallery, the California Citrus State Museum, CSUN Art Galleries, The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art and Culture, the Riverside Art Museum, and other museums. For his Concrete Poetry, Delgado received the "2023-24 Established Artist Fellow" from the California Arts Council Artists.

Thomas McGovern is a photographer and retired university professor. His photographs have been in over 30 solo and more than 50 group exhibitions and represented in the permanent collections of the International Center of Photography (ICP), Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), The Brooklyn Museum, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and many others. He is the author of Bearing Witness (to AIDS), Amazing Grace, Hard Boys + Bad Girls, and Vital Signs which he co-authored with poet Juan Delgado. Vital Signs won an American Book Award in 2014. He has been collaborating with Delgado since 2013.