Finder's 'Keepers': Snapping Flashes of Soul : Photography: With her ethnographic portraiture, Dana Gluckstein strives to create 'a divine moment' by connecting with her subjects.

Finder’s ‘Keepers’: Snapping Flashes of Soul : Photography: With her ethnographic portraiture, Dana Gluckstein strives to create ‘a divine moment’ by connecting with her subjects.

By BENJAMIN EPSTEIN

April 19, 1995 12 AM PT

SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

You might have seen Dana Gluckstein’s photographs in any number of places: annual reports, ad campaigns, celebrity photos in magazines. They’re even on a line of greeting cards.

Now a black-and-white series of Gluckstein’s ethnographic portraiture titled “Keepers of the Dream”--the same shots on her greeting cards--is hanging in the conference center at the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art in Santa Ana through May 12.

And don’t let the commercial aspects stop you.

“I’ve always wanted my commercial work to be fine art; I’ve always used artificial light in a natural, documentary way,” Gluckstein, 37, said. “Even in commercial art, I’m interested in the soul of a person. Whether it’s photographing tribal chiefs or famous Hollywood celebrities, the essential ingredients are the same . . . .

“(But) most enlightening for me has been my portraiture of native peoples in their homelands,” she said. “They bring a boldness and passion to my camera that is more difficult to achieve with Westerners.”

The Los Angeles photographer shoots celebrities for magazines including People, Time and Vogue and for Hollywood movie studios. Paramount recently hired her to photograph “Forrest Gump” director Robert Zemeckis and screenwriter Eric Roth. She’s done ad campaigns for Chiat / Day and Ogilvy & Mather advertising agencies and began her career doing photographs for corporate annual reports.

Gluckstein grew up in an artistic environment; her mother, a longtime art enthusiast, serves on the Museum Council of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. In high school, Gluckstein won painting and drawing scholarships. Though her curriculum at Stanford University included fine arts, she earned a degree in psychology in 1979 before opting for a career in commercial photography. Said Gluckstein: “All art forms come from the same sources--from your soul and your inspiration.”

It might appear groundbreaking that “Keepers of the Dream” is being displayed at Bowers Museum at all: A spokesman confirmed that the museum has never sponsored a one-person exhibition by a living artist.

“This isn’t considered an exhibition. It’s an exhibit,” the spokesman explained. “An exhibition is curated, an exhibit is not, and the curator has to be somebody other than the artist. Like the breast-cancer art show last year, it’s being displayed in the conference center” rather than in the museum’s galleries.

In another break from convention, where most artists rely on an art institution’s publicity department to get the word out about their shows, Gluckstein hired an independent public relations firm to promote hers.

“(Bowers) Museum really is very well connected in Orange County, but they needed help,” she said. “There’s a problem with the Orange Curtain. . . . There are so many people in L.A. who have never heard of Bowers.”

And Gluckstein definitely wants people to hear about these photographs. She talks a great deal about “giving a voice to native people,” and “the dire need for Western culture to respect and deeply understand the profound messages these cultures have to offer.”

The 30 images on display were brought back from a handful of trips to Haiti, Kenya, Mexico, Australia and Bali. The images are easy to appreciate, often arresting or hypnotic; they’ve been reprinted on greeting cards distributed by Museum Graphics (Ansel Adams’ company, now run by his granddaughter).

So what separates transcendence from travelogue? Fine art from skillfully executed tourist shots?

“I’ve struggled with that myself,” Gluckstein said.

“But the way I work with people . . . they understand that I’m not a tourist, (that) I wish to carry their voice and their images to other people not exposed to this. These are not about people with fabulous faces . . . .”

That’s not to say the faces she selected aren’t fabulous, from “Samburu Women” to the “Masai Grandmother” and “Masai Elder with Robe” (Kenya), from “Market Boy With Basket” to “Haitian Lady” (Haiti). And many viewers have singled out her “Balinese Temple Dancer in Trance” shot for special praise.

“One works in a dream state . . . a lot of it is creating a divine moment,” Gluckstein said. “It’s very beautiful when you connect with someone in that way. There’s a lot of love that’s shared, and a deep respect. That’s the experience that transpires.

“The art form is what comes out in print. One hopes that the thousands of people that see the image see that it’s archetypal, that it transcends. That these images have touched so many people repeatedly, you know you’ve tapped into the archetypal place.”

* “Keepers of the Dream,” ethnographic portraiture by photographer Dana Gluckstein, is on display at the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art, 2002 N. Main St., Santa Ana. The Gluckstein exhibit is free. Through May 12. Museum open Tuesday through Sunday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Thursday 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. (714) 567-3600.