I suspect that one of the most fun aspects of being a museum curator is rummaging around to see what’s been neglected for years and hiding in storage. There is nothing like a significant gift — big enough to celebrate but not big enough to stand on its own — to spur some serious foraging. The SFMOMA has recently mounted their “Photography in Mexico: Selected Works from the Collections of SFMOMA and Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser” with the added bonus that the museum decided to round out the show with a shopping spree.
In a state that will soon have a Hispanic majority it is a really good idea to invest in art from south of the border. This show is a great start and I hope the trend continues. Mexico is a complicated, diverse country with all the same issues found in any developed county but amplified by a history of greater inequality. The show skips the more staid, pictorial images and smartly opens with the lively experimental modernism of the twenties. This is when artists were breaking loose at every level and most of them made a pilgrimage to Mexico t. So, the first section, with the exception of Manuel Alvarez Bravo, is showing foreigners (Modotti, Weston, Strand). These photographers are in love with post-revolution Mexico, and that precious moment between the peasant society of the past and the future of the industrial and modern society. These are part of the international inteligensia that socialized with Diego Rivera, Frieda Kahlo, invited Trotsky to visit. There is a terrific interplay between the images of folkart and those which experiment with uniquely photographic notions of light, dimensionality and surrealism. The next generation of photographers in this show are mostly Mexican. The women (Iturbide and Yamplonsky) show an idealized, spiritual vision of Mexico while the men (Lopez, Garcia, Metinides) give us more gritty reportage of life in Mexico through the sixities or so. The eighties are dominated by Pedro Meyer, Pablo Ortiz and Lourdes Grobet. The nineties and aughts are all brand new purchases. For those interested in learning more I would recommend “Mexico Through Foreign Eyes” by Fred Ritchin and Carole Naggar.( http://www.amazon.com/Mexico-Through-Foreign-Eyes-Extranjeros/dp/039331491X). There is a section devoted to indigenous photographers that document the hellish consequences of forging ahead into modern life. It’s just like our side of the border, but more so. Gigantic housing tracts that cover a mountainside with tiny, tiny homes built so fast there is no water hookups before they’re sold. All the usual problems are skillfully depicted by concerned Mexican photographers.
The exhibit is bookended by another section of mostly foreign photographers exploring the ever fascinating phenomenon of the border between California and Mexico. I know the curator did not intend it, but I could not help thinking “Here is life in Mexico and no wonder people want to leave.” But actually, I know that many, many Mexicans feel an allegiance to both the US and their native country and getting back and forth across the border is a huge hassle to be born with patience. In any case, this section shows the border from every point of view: border as an intellectual contstruct (Sambunaris), border as a place of danger and cruelty (Median), border as found object (Soth), border as a war (Gatley) and so on. Honestly, it’s not a great way to end a voyage through Mexico, and personally, it looks more like an art class assignment, and doesn’t hold together as well as the other sections do for me. Rather than promote a sense of Latin culture through the usual fiesta pallate of such shows, assistant curator Jessica McDonald specifically uses the spare exhibition design and very pale blue walls to evoke our intellect to regard these images as an investigation of photographic history and theory. We are meant to appreciate “the degree to which a complex synthesis of art and politics has been and remains central to photography in Mexico.” I look forward to future shows that will beg borrow and steal to expand on the fabulous depth and breadth of photography about Mexico, a place that has been unique in its attraction for artists and which has both a cohesive national identity but defies any one definition.
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In celebration of Cinco de Mayo – a review of Mexican photography
Photography In Mexico : Selected Works From The Collections of SFMoMA and Daniel Greenberg and Steinhauser
On view from March 10 through July 8, 2012
SFMoma
151 Third Street San Francisco,
CA 94103, États-Unis
