The Museo Archivo de la Fotografia (MAF) in Mexico City, in partnership with the country’s Secretary of Culture, is currently presenting the exhibition El lago asfaltado (The Asphalted Lake), a reference to the lake covered by the construction of the city. Nearly one hundred photographs have been selected by the curator and architect Alejandro Hernández Gálvez. They tell the story of Mexico City’s urban transformation over the course of the 20th century, from the construction of the Calle 20 de Noviembre in the city’s historical center in 1935 and the Avenida de los Insurgentes in 1948, to the opening of the Abelardo L. Rodríguez market in 1934. Now the public can see photographs of these events, all of which marked the development of the city.
“The images bear witness to the accumulation of works, of construction and destruction,” explains Gálvez. Photography can immortalize a landscape that now only exists through pictures. “We built a city on top of a lake, but underneath the asphalt, the lake still exists, thanks to the images and films that document the transformation.”
From the two million photographs in their archives, eighty were selected, not as nostalgic souvenirs of a bygone era, but as testimony of an ongoing change.
The black-and-white images are presented with texts by contemporary Mexican figures like Guillermo Kahlo, Héctor García and Diego Cañedo, giving us the opportunity to approach the capital city from different angles.
Céline Chevallier
El Lago Asfasltado
Until March 1st, 2013
Museo Archivio de la Fotografia
Rue República de Guatemala 34
Centro Histórico. México, D.F.
