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 Vallarta Living | Art Talk | August 2007 
Mexican Photographs a Study in Contrasting Depth, Vision
 Jeremy D. Bonfiglio - South Bend Tribune
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| | "Obrero en Huelga, Asesinado (Striking Worker, Assassinated)," taken in 1934 by Manuel Alvarez Bravo, is one of the more powerful images on display in the exhibition "Two Eyes on Mexico: Photographs by Paul Strand and Manuel Alvarez Bravo," which continues through Aug. 19 at the University of Notre Dame's Snite Museum of Art. |
There's no greater artistic tool than a photographer's eye. It's part vision, part timing, part life experience, and all instinct.
Those who pick up a camera either have a good eye or they don't. It's often the difference between a work of art and a snapshot.
What if two photographers gifted with a keen artistic vision converged on the same place, in the same time? Would their eyes be similar? Would the works complement or contrast each other? What stories would they tell?
"Two Eyes on Mexico: Photographs by Paul Strand and Manuel Alvarez Bravo," which continues through Aug. 19 at the University of Notre Dame's Snite Museum of Art, explores those very questions.
The 18 images - nine by each photographer - were taken in Mexico during the first half of the 20th century.
Strand, whose work began in the United States, left for Mexico in 1932. He was a socialist interested in the results of the Mexican Revolution and the country's working class.
Many of the photographs displayed in this exhibition reflect that ideology. He wanted to show that Mexico's poor had dignity and a strong culture. Strand visited several smaller towns to create a series of portraits that feature stoic men and women, often placed against a backdrop of crumbling clay walls.
"Woman and Boy - Tenancingo," taken in 1933, is the best of these images on display at the Snite.
An elderly woman sits against a post. Her chin rests on her left fist. A shawl partially covers her head. Next to her stands a young boy, no older than 12. His outstretched left arm supports his weight as he leans against the same post. His other hand is on his hip. He's wearing a poncho, a straw hat and the look of a much older man. Both are peering off the frame, expressionless.
Strand's work, at times, has been called overly sentimental, and that's certainly true here, but there also is beauty in his work.
"Cristo With Thorns - Huexotla," taken in 1933, shows a haunting image of a Christ statue. The oversize eyes exude sorrow and pain. There's the crown of thorns and the blood. Christ's face is outlined by streaks of dark liquid dripping off the thorns.
It's the combination of faith and supernatural superstition that so expertly captures the Mexican culture.
In 1940, Strand chose 20 of these Mexican photographs - "Woman and Boy - Tenancingo," and "Cristo With Thorns - Huexotla" among them - to publish as a collection of inexpensive photogravures - an intaglio printmaking process that uses a flat, etched copperplate on special, dampened paper run through an etching press.
All of Strand's images in this collection are photogravures, which may explain why many of them appear quite dark (the shadows in photogravures must be etched particularly deep).
Unlike Strand, Alvarez Bravo had little interest in politics. Instead, he was fascinated with the life of the streets and the irony and anguish found throughout Mexican history and culture.
He was born in 1902 in the old part of Mexico City, near the Great Temple of the Aztecs, and began studying photography in the '20s - shortly after the Mexican Revolution.
Because his pictures are filled with references to death, beauty, sensuality and religion, Alvarez Bravo's work reaches a depth that Strand's pieces can't achieve.
Alvarez Bravo's black-and-white silver gelatin prints are games of shadow and light.
"Portrait of the Eternal," taken in the early '30s, features a woman (poet and singer Isabel Villaseñor) resting on the edge of a blanket on the floor and holding a small mirror to her face. An unseen source casts a small beam of light on the right side of her body, pulling her out of darkness.
The edge of light creates a sharp division of space, cutting between the base of her nose, leaving her eye in shadow. The path continues past the edge of her mouth and continues diagonally through abundant tresses of hair that reach down to her thighs.
It's an intimate image, as if the viewer is witnessing a private moment.
It's something Alvarez Bravo does exceptionally well.
Two of Alvarez Bravo's more famous images - "Obrero en Huelga, Asesinado (Striking Worker, Assassinated)" and "La Buena Fama Durmiendo (Good Reputation Sleeping)" - are cleverly displayed together in the Snite exhibition.
Death was often a subject of Alvarez Bravo's work, and "Obrero en Huelga, Asesinado," taken in 1934, shows that all too clearly.
A young man lies face up in a pool of his own blood. An arm reaches out toward the left of the camera and the stream of blood on the earth toward the right. His eyes are open and vacant. It's a disturbing and stirring image of the violence of the time.
It also, whether Alvarez Bravo was conscious of it or not, makes a much more powerful political statement than any of Strand's attempts. Although Strand's images are pointedly political, they are often devoid of emotion. Alvarez Bravo's work, meanwhile, is filled with it.
His 1938 image "La Buena Fama Durmiendo" pairs nicely with "Obrero en Huelga, Asesinado" because of the surreal nature of the image.
The photograph features a young, nude woman lying in a similar pose as the dead man. Her thighs are wrapped in bandages and she is surrounded by prickly cactuses. The image is whimsical and provocative and provides a nice balance to some of Alvarez Bravo's deeper works.
Although Strand's works are widely celebrated, Alvarez Bravo simply outshines him in this collection. Although both men stayed true to their vision of Mexico, as this exhibition demonstrates, it was Alvarez Bravo who clearly had the better eye. |
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