“After a year and a half of Castro, in the summer of 1960, my father and I left (but not my mother). The grandfather I’m named after also left, and went to Brazil. He’s buried in Copacabana, the suburb of Rio de Janeiro—a great place to be buried, if you have to be buried somewhere. My grandmother was more of a hardcore Castro supporter, and didn’t want to leave; and so they separated. She’s buried in Cuba. My uncles were divided on the issue.” – Mario Algaze, in a SXSE interview at age 65 (January 2012)
Born in Cuba in 1947, Mario Algaze spent his early years in the Miramar neighborhood of Havana, and then at the age of thirteen, immigrated to south Florida.
In 1971, at age 24, he began working as a self-taught darkroom photographer. He has traveled widely in South and Central America, capturing sixteen Latin American countries, reflecting on his exile, and exploring the nuances of what it means to be descended from the Roman Empire.
Working first as a photojournalist of notable music performers in the 1970s, he took up fine art photography in the 1980s. Mario has received fellowships from the Florida Arts Council, the United Nations, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
We first interviewed Mario three years ago, in an issue about Southern photographers living or working primarily outside the South.
With the recent rapprochement between Cuba and the United States, and Mario’s upcoming show at Throckmorton Gallery in New York City, we are happy to welcome him back, to talk about five of the 30 works appearing in the exhibition.
The exhibition follows the launch of Mario’s book, A Respect for Light: The Latin American Photographs 1974-2008. The photos are selenium toned, silver gelatin prints, and were taken with a (now) 45-year-old Hasselblad, and either a 40mm Distagon, or 80mm Planar, lens.
Mario, it’s December 1981; at the age of 34, half a lifetime ago, your second trip to España. An entertainment venue, painted on a wall, subtly suggests Iberian vaudeville, as it were.
Traveling from Miami to Madrid, I had an appointment to photograph a minor writer of the 1930s, a man who had returned to Spain after decades in exile, following the death of Generalissimo Francisco Paulino Hermenegildo Teódulo Franco Bahamonde (1892-1975), the dictator (1939-1975), and an unspeakable ruffian/war criminal of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939).
Missing are my notations of exactly who the author was; the contact sheets/transparencies were airmailed to whichever company commissioned the session. I wish I knew who he was. But I don’t, so that detail is no importa.
History of the shot – It was late afternoon. There was a cold wind, backwards from the Saharan sirocco which inundates the Mediterranean, to heat up Southern Europe in summer. At 1530 hours, siesta was not over; the streets were deserted. I was killing time in a book store, leafing through an anthology about Walker Evans.
This particular photograph, “Raul Sender,” has never been released before. (If today you look up the gentleman who looms as the idol of that playbill, he is described as born in Zaragosa in 1943 – a humorist, actor, comic, and TV personality. Still alive, four years older than moi.)
The reason this shot appears in the exhibition is because Marta Hallett, publisher of Glitterati Inc., of New York, came to visit, and in the style of a literary detective said: “Mario, let me go through your contacts.”
Stories fall out when a person of advanced middle age allows her or his Rolodex to be interrogated, don’t they.
The city of Cuenca, is in the Ecuadorian Southwest….Quito, the capital, is in the North Central, so, why were you there?
Actually, I lived in Ecuador three and a half years, between 1988 and 1991. I was going through a phase where I had an apartment in Miami and an apartment in Quito. At the time I wasn’t published yet; those years were formative for 100% immersion in South and Central American culture.
You know how they say you have to “go away” in order to earn recognition for one’s craft? How a prophet is honored everywhere but in his/her own house? (laughs)
Well, I’m not a prophet; I take black-and-white still photographs lasting a split second, in time and space, and via a network of compadres who love visual images, make them available to other humans. That’s the value stream – pretty simple.
But the point is, about 1982, people who were high up in the arts would tell young people just starting out, “The way to get to New York is roundabout….spend time in Europe, get discovered there, have your Hemingway/Left Bank phase, then come home, young tigers of visual media. Play your cards right, and in ten years you will be driving a DeLorean.” In my case, I spent a lot of time traveling, those years, on four continents, then got published in Munich, around the time the two Germanies were reunifying (1991).
A year later, on the strength of, I guess, the previous decade’s work, I received one of the last two photography fellowships ever given by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), before it was discontinued/disappropriated by Congress, in the aftermath of the Robert Mapplethorpe affair (link: < http://www.upenn.edu/pnc/ptkoch.html >).
History of the shot – Against the backdrop of hung-up pastel laundry which will appear later in the day, here was an icon of America, “Liberty,” parked on someone’s ersatz patio. In this Andean city founded 500 A.D., 8,200 feet of sea level, Cuenca has mountains on all four sides….but the Pacific Ocean, via the nearest coastal city of Machala, is only 70 miles by air.
This photograph, also, has never been released. It was taken in spring, about 11 in the morning. Even for subtropical highlands, the light in the Andes, that high up, before mid-day, is quite forgiving. It mattered to me to capture the statue in silhouette.
As it happens, in 2011 I returned to Cuenca, by then having reached a population of 330,000. Assuredly, more sprawl to the edge of the city limit, yet still rustic with the medieval feel which has been lost to, say, Lima, Peru (population 8.5 million), 650 air miles to the south. Cuenca has become a destination of choice for European and American retirees due to the low cost of living and average year-round temperature of 58 degrees.
The girl from Ipanema, visiting Salvador?
Most unexpected. Extremely spontaneous. Think how the profession used to dwell on those “decisive moment” (Henri Cartier-Bresson) moments. For a stylist of the old school, who doesn’t stage actors or events, or contrive “high-concept” photography, or have the slightest grasp of digitally manipulated images, this was street photography without car exhaust, hot dog vendors, or the obligatory J-walker. Complete stillness, save for one upright biped.
History of the shot – We arrived in Salvador, my friend Silvia Lizama and myself. Salvador is on the central coast of Brazil, about 700 air miles north of Rio de Janeiro. Got up early in the morning, shared a taxi to somewhere. The time of year was Brazilian winter, July, maybe.
I remember looking at these buildings that opened to a cobblestone courtyard. It was early, certainly before 8 in the morning. Silvia said, “Mario, heads up. Look what’s coming down the street.”
There were basically 3.5 cycles of the mystic sundial to react. The girl – she looked like a gazelle – beautiful, tall, young, woman-child, goddess, student. When she turned the corner, I had the camera; ready, focus, hold breath. No time for tripod (I did not use a tripod with the Hasselblad, anyway). There was one and only one shot possible. Later during developing and printing, her precociousness came out.
Click. The young lady was completely unaware. Had it been otherwise, she, and the shot, would have been “muecas,” – from the Spanish phrase, “hacer muecas” – “to make faces.” Otherwise, when the expression arises, sometimes it means “grimace,” or mugging while the classroom teacher is looking away. (I attended military school in Havana during the 1950s, and, for the record, may have thusly mugged.)
The title for the shot comes from a verse of “Cancion de Otoño en Primavera,” by Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío (1867-1916), a muse on the unconscious bliss of being young:
Cancion de Otoño en Primavera Song of Autumn in the Springtime
(Translation by Salomón de la Selva, one of Nicaragua’s major poets.)
Juventud, divino tesoro, Youth, treasure only gods may keep,
ya te vas para no volver! Fleeting from me forever now!
Cuando quiero llorar, no lloro, I cannot, when I wish to, weep
y a veces lloro sin querer…. And often cry, I know not how ….
“Juventud Divino Tesoro,” the photo, has been the subject of one limited release, by Throckmorton Fine Art, in 1997. My friend Silvia Lizama went on to become head of the art department at Barry University, Miami Shores, Florida.
¿Dónde está el baño?
For most of human history, elbaño was anywhere and everywhere. (It says so in the Book of Genesis, an unfortunate dimension of getting kicked out of the Garden of Eden.)
That is not the intrinsic meaning of this photograph.
Remember in No. 14 in the exhibition, above (“Liberty”), where the NEA was compelled by Congress to cut back on fellowships and subsidies to the arts community because of the Robert Mapplethorpe controversy? Over time, the NEA was permitted by Congress to restore arts funding, in the form of prizes, fellowships, scholarships, etc., but not for the visual arts (as I understand it).
A prime mover of that legislative intent, to abolish, or at least severely damage, the NEA, was a person named Jesse A. Helms, Jr. (1921-2008). He served in the United States Senate (R-N.C.) from 1973 until 2003.
When he died in July 2008, a respected political reporter, and dean of the Washington D.C. press corps, David Broder of the Washington Post, reminded that newspaper’s readership what Helms had represented, concerning the Old South. (link: < http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/06/AR2008070602321.html >). It was quite an op-ed send-off – trenchant, direct, and not elliptical.
It has been 12 years since this individual, Helms, departed the Senate. In my estimation, with the passing of time and the press of other politics, it is easy to forget that Helms was an implacable foe of arts funding and public broadcasting.
But, you know the thought from John Adams:
I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.
(Goes for daughters, too.) (Goes for photography, also.)
And so this photograph, No. 8 in the exhibition, is dedicated to former U.S. Senator Jesse A. Helms, Jr., so that any person viewing it might reflect on how arts and culture, humanities education, and the life of the mind, should probably, just maybe, be above politics (if and when our politics ever becomes mature).
History of the shot – Time of the year was Caribbean spring. Time of day, early in the morning. This image has been released once before, in a small catalog.
Viva Cuba.
Such biodiversity, shooting any sort of flora/fauna from the tropics. A palm, at that great height, with the Cuban countryside in background. Breathtaking. (It reminded me of a locale in Brazil, where the Amazon and Rio Negro rivers come together – black water meeting green water.)
History of the shot – The scenery was out on the northeast end of the island. I think I could find that spot again, 15-1/4 years later….autumn, November 10, 1999, around 7am.
I was on a natural ledge, rock outcropping, and had to scurry up a trail. The fog was lifting – more in the foreground, less in the higher elevation. (One would think it would burn off highest to lowest.)
In the darkroom, fog is tricky. It’s a bitch to print (why I never released this one before). To print fog, and get resolution and detail, is exacting. If you are a couple seconds off, in processing time, or exposure time, or half a point off in contrast, you get a different image. To get what they’re going to see in the final outcome, there is a marked period of trial and error. This will still be true after 100 years in the business.
Ergo, my best client is my waste basket; the ruination of much photo paper is not avoidable. My wife, Maria Consuelo, accompanies me into the darkroom, every time. Experiment, morning goes by, lunch, 3rd and 4th dry. She keeps a record of times and temperatures every time we work together. The A/C is generally left at 72. Each instance is instantly recognizable as go/no-go, concerning the final product. So if it dries a little darker, I will leave it as is, or run another.
Be it known, water purity has a lot to do with developing. The Miami, FL, water here, pulled from Lake Okeechobee, is not hard. By the time it emerges from the tap, it’s double-filtered, so pure we use it for cooking. Because mineral impurities react, I don’t bring in contaminants like that. Different phylums of water in darkroom processing are like playing a Gibson versus a Martin guitar. Even the same photo paper, Brand X, with ostensibly the same serial number, can vary between manufacturing lots. For example, I can expose the paper at F-16, 30 seconds, and two different lots will emerge as not-identical. You have to tweak every time, and then that is based on the trial exposures which happened before.
Concerning the change in bi-national political relations this past two months, I’m happy. Restoring full diplomatic relations, and the easing of travel, trade, banking, and I.T. restrictions – I wasn’t sure I would see this in my lifetime.
The U.S.-Cuba embargo happened at almost the same time as the Kremlin’s raising of the Berlin Wall. The embargo became official U.S. policy in 1962. But in 1960, Eisenhower, and in 1961, Kennedy, had already put sanctions in effect. The Bay of Pigs incursion went forward, and collapsed, in April 1961. Diplomatic relations broke off in 1961 after Cuba signed a trade deal with the USSR. The missile crisis was in October 1962. Over the decades Congress continued to pile on barriers to working together.
Not a political scientist, but I am of the school that if you keep doing the same thing over and over again, whether that be in the darkroom, or the same formula for homemade picante sauce, expecting a different result, you’ll never get it. If you keep playing the same sonata in E flat, and expect it to shapeshift in tonality, it will never happen. Keep the same political and economic approach – sustainment of disdainment; what emerges is stasis and drift and stagnation. The embargo should end.
Meanwhile, Barack Obama is going to look like Morgan Freeman in 20 years – a President who made a difference, despite 45+ percent of the population either opposed or indifferent. A great President, maybe.
Reprinted with permission South x Southeast photomagazine ©sxsemagazine.com
Written by Dennis Graves for South x Southeast photomagazine.
EXHIBITION
A respect for life by Mario Algaze
From April 9th to May 16th , 2015
Throckmorton Fine Art
145 E 57th St
New York, NY 10022
United States
