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 Vallarta Living | Art Talk | August 2005 
Photos Give Glimpses of Mexican Past
 Park Jung-youn - Korea Times
| | Visitors look at photos during the opening ceremony of a photo exhibition, “Mexico at the Beginning of the 20th Century,” at the Korea Foundation Cultural Center in Seoul (Photo: Kim Hyun-tae) |
Nearly 70 photos are on display at the exhibition _ photos dating back as far as 1895, and the most recent one taken in 1972.
One black-and-white photo shows Diego Rivera, a renowned Mexican painter better known as the husband of Frida Kahlo, leading the crowd in a public demonstration.
Another shows university students in a street rally near the National University of Mexico, their faces contorted from the heat generated by the crowd.
There are pictures of people performing their everyday activities; men at a barber shop getting haircuts; factory workers doing mundane labor; people relaxing at a cafe; and white-collar female employees at the office.
They are photographic mementos of Mexico, capturing the nation’s past and the daily lives of Mexicans of various ethnicities and social backgrounds at the times that the pictures were taken.
Hosted by the Mexican Embassy, the exhibition, titled "Mexico at the Beginning of the 20th Century," was held to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Korean migration to Mexico.
The exhibit, which opened to the public on Aug. 18 at the Korea Foundation Cultural Center in central Seoul, will continue through Aug. 30, providing insight on Mexican history and the changes that took place over the years.
The photos come from the Casasola Archive, which is kept at the National Photographic Collection of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH).
The photos were collected by brothers Agustin Victor and Miguel Casasola, who was once a professional photojournalist.
Agustin Victor worked for the major Mexican newspapers of the time, "El Tiempo" and "El Imparcial," and later served as chief photographer for the municipal government of Mexico City.
There he dedicated himself to collecting photographs of Mexico’s social and political development. There are close to 483,994 photos at the Casasola Archive, making it the largest photo archive in Mexico, according to Mexican Ambassador to South Korea Leandro Arellano.
"The Casasola Archive is not only the pride of Mexican people but also the representation of Mexico’s past and present," he said during the opening ceremony.
"This photo exhibition is a way for us pay our respects to those Koreans, the brave souls who migrated to Mexico 100 years ago, as well as the Mexicans who received them with open arms," he added.
The exhibition is the product of hard work by the Mexican Embassy and the generous support from the Korea Foundation Cultural Center, and it is a great pleasure and honor on the part of the Mexican Embassy to present this treasured photo collection from the nation’s most treasured photo archive, said Pedro Blanco-Perez, cultural affairs and cooperation consular of the Mexian Embassy.
"We have been planning this for months, and up until last night _ my sister and I were putting up the photos. A tremendous amount of work was involved in setting this up," Blanco-Perez said.
"And I am very happy to have helped make this exhibition possible, knowing that this is a very good way to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Korean immigration to Mexico, and to inform Koreans of what Mexico was like at the time Korean immigrants came to the country," he said. |
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