The SFMOMA Hosts the Exhibit “Photography in Mexico” including Mexican Photographer Pablo Ortiz Monasterio

The SFMOMA Hosts the Exhibit “Photography in Mexico” including Mexican Photographer Pablo Ortiz Monasterio

Thanks to a recent major gift from Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser, presenting a complex synthesis of art and politics, “Photography in Mexico” explores Mexico’s diverse and distinctively rich photography tradition from the 1920s until today. Photographies being exhibited include Edward Weston’s “Pirámide del Sol”, Teotihuacán, 1923; Lola Álvarez Bravo’s “Los gorrones”, 1955; Graciela Iturbide’s  “Nuestra Señora de las Iguanas”, Juchitan, Oaxaca, Mexico, 1979; and Alejandro Cartagena’s “Fragmented Cities, Juarez #2” from the Suburbia Mexicana series, 2007.

The exhibit covers the period following the Mexican Revolution, when international artists such as Tina Modotti and Edward Weston found creative inspiration in Mexico and, in turn, helped to inspire Mexican photographers like Lola Álvarez Bravo and Manuel Álvarez Bravo. 

“Photography in Mexico”, on display at the SFMOMA until July 8, 2012, includes photographs that were made for the illustrated press starting in the 1950s and documentary investigations from the 1970s and 1980s. The exhibition concludes with contemporary examinations of social, environmental, and economic concerns both within Mexico and along its northern border. The selection of more than 150 photographs draws from SFMOMA's own photography collection and a recent major gift from Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser, and showcases works by Pablo Ortiz Monasterio, most recently known for the curation of the “Frida Kahlo: Her Photos” exhibit, the U.S. premiere of which is being held at Artisphere, Manuel Carrillo, Graciela Iturbide, Elsa Medina, Mariana Yampolsky, among many other well-known photographers.