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Mexico's Modern Masters of Photography
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16119 |
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THE ARTS
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6 / 1989 |
2,198 Words |
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Mark Holston
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Among the earliest instance of photography in Mexico is an eloquent frame form the camera of Francois Aubert. A pioneer in the art form, he was present when Emperor Maximilian was executed by a revolutionary firing squad in Queretaro in 1867. Thus Aubert documented the aftermath of the unlucky emperor's last heroic moment of life, focusing on his bullet-tattered coast and vest. Today, this simple composition is a comment on the early role of photography in the world's most populous Spanish-speaking nation and on the theme of death, a theme profoundly bonded to Mexico and its artist.
"Mexico is a country especially rich in images," notes Leonor Ortiz Monasterio, director of the National General Archives in Mexico City. "The desire of Mexico to incorporate itself into the modern era just when photography was being discovered determined that photography would develop rapidly here," Ortiz observes. "Suddenly the camera replaced the paintbrush. The photographic plate fixed a broad panorama of images that would arouse great cultural and commercial interest in other countries."
That Mexican photography would grow into an internationally admired movement is not surprising once the full scope of the nation's tradition in visual art is taken into account. Twentieth-century master painters like Diego Rivera, Jose Orozco, David Siqueiros, and Rufino Tamayo have long been testimonial to Mexico's secure and admired position as a producer of major artistic talent, a country imbued with a universally recognized aesthetic and blessed by original national characteristics. Today, a new generation of artists who have replaced the paintbrush with the camera is ensuring--through the power of their compelling contributions to photojournalism and serious art photography--continued international respect for their complex nation.
Profoundly Influential
Any discussion of contemporary Mexican photography has to begin with 87-year-old Manuel Alvarez Bravo, his country's most eminent photographer. Well represented in museums around the world, Alvarez Bravo's name is synonymous in Latin America with the craft he began experimenting with in the 1920s. "Visual and psychological analysis" is how Charles Desmarais, the director of the California Museum of Photography, characterizes the master's seventy-year career. Profoundly influential on the development of photography in his country, Alvarez Bravo remains active to this day as director of the Museo de Fotografia in Mexico City.
The post-Alvarez Bravo generation of Mexican photographers today reflects both an attitude of unspoken commitment to established national sensibilities and an eagerness to embrace and advance the most current trends on the international scene. "The artists are Mexican," says Joel Perez, an educator and photography critic based in Austin, Texas, "but the outlook is not parochial. Like Mexico itself, they are global, compassionate, optimistic, and ever surprising."
Those comments seem tailor-made for the work and attitude of one of Mexico's best-known contemporary photographers, Graciela Iturbide. An early disciple and assistant of Alvarez Bravo and a student of cinematography, Iturbide is best known for her gritty, symbol-filled photojournalistic style. The prolific (with well over 100,000 black-and-while and 35-mm slides in her collection) and widely traveled photographer
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