Noticias
In the context of the exhibition, Russian avant-garde: The Vertigo of the Future
Russian Avant-Garde influence in the Mexican photopraphers is analyzed at the Palace of Fine Arts
December 10, 2015Did the Russian avant-garde movement affect in the work of Mexican photographers? What common elements can be observed in the artists' work? Did Mexico ever take elements of the Russian avant-garde and made it parallel to its own art ?, these were some of the questions addressed during the reflection on the Russian and Mexican avant-garde by photography critic Jose Antonio Rodriguez.
During the conference, Vision and Image. Photography on the Russian and Mexican avant-garde, writer, curator said: "communicating vessels between Russian arts and what was conceived in Mexico, but actually, I think there was a multitude of avant-garde, because it was an effort for modernization of the image that led both, painters and photographers take possession of modern forms that science and industry provided for them"
The Área de Murales (Murals area) of the marble building hosted this conference where Jose Antonio Rodriguez added that the Russian avant-garde had an effect on other cultures of the image, but in Mexico and other parts of Latin America, such as Brazil and Venezuela, took on its own letter of naturalization at different times.
"Since the consciousness of a visual modernity in Latin America was not always temporarily compatible with what was happening in North America, Europe and Russia itself, Latin American modernists not always danced to the tune others played, because national times had its own claims”.
"According to the photography critic Jose Antonio Navarrete, to be updated or modern was a way to attend to national claims in conservatism power elite countries, so the avant-garde arrived to the university and contemporaneity demanded by culture and social life; that is how Latin American artists and intellectuals of the time understood it. "
The writer revealed that the Russian avant-garde emerged in 1920 and gradually developed until mid-1926 reaches its greatest strength, while it was spread on August 1923 in Mexico, when the photographer Tina Modotti and Edward Weston arrived.
"They began to do Mexican avant-garde in Mexico, apart from what was developing in Germany and Russia; Weston was in search of visual forms and Tina was his right arm and a great student”.
The historian added that Mexican artists were not completely influenced by artists of the Russian avant-garde, but nourished from European magazines that allowed to generate and establish communicating vessels between the different Russian, German and Mexican avant-garde.
In the talk, Jose Antonio Rodriguez also went through the work of outstanding artists of the Russian and Mexican avant-garde, starting with Alexander Rodchenko, who according to the researcher, was among photographers a great theorist who changed the way to see the world.
"Because he is going to create a basic figure of the new visual structures, used not only in photography that will permeate European cinema: a figure where the circle and triangle predominates, which is the basic form of Russian Constructivism ".
He added that Rodchenko established that new perspectives were essential and was not necessary to look in one plane or eye level, but to change points of view.
"He compared the high-angle shot with the bird´s eye view and the low-angle shot with the worm´s look, a small being who looks up and sees the monumental objects and nature."
Jose Antonio Rodriguez shared some of the pictures of this artist, highlighting Joven trompetista, (Young trumpeter), where the view is seen from low-angle shot, circularity and triangulation of its elements, but also how he eliminated environments and backgrounds to give a huge presence to the foreground and build, from photography, another type of society in which he was living.
He presented Canana, mazorca y hoz (Cartridge belt, corn and sickle), image of Tina Modotti, which includes still life that according to Rodriguez changed the way to see Mexican photography by the close-up, geometrization of the sickle and the symbolic act of the cartridge belts and corn that spoke about Revolution and the Mexican countryside that was emerging, unlike Russia, which was dominated by industry.
He also showed the work of Margaret Bourke-White, characterized by diagonal lines going up that create triangulations and circularity in its compositions.
As well, works by Sergei Eisenstein from the movie, ¡Qué viva Mexico! (Long live Mexico!) were presented, adding that the work of the film director stood up because he made a new way of seeing the world through scenes and experimental compositions
He also spoke of Boris Ignatovich, an artist who comes from photojournalism and who creates new points of view from thinking the shots, the geometrization of the elements that compose and create the pictures from aspects such as human presence, metal and rhythms in the lines, things that can be seen in his work, En el edificio, (In the building).
Jose Antonio Rodriguez revealed that Mexican avant-garde was developed amazingly until 1928, with the first Mexican Photography Meeting Hall, "but will not take the plunge until 1931 with the Contest Cemento Tolteca".
He presented images of the work by Mexican artist Emilio Amero, who is one of the key figures in Mexican avant-garde, as he is an explorer of photomontages and photograms.
He highlighted the work of Agustin Jimenez, standing out the circularity, geometry and metal coldness, backgrounds and objects close-up are removed, elements that will originate a new way of seeing the world through photography.
About José Torres Palomar, who creates stunning images of dancers based on transversal design and low-angle shot, an innovator who lived in New York and despite working with the leading American photographer Alfred Stieglitz, he remains unknown.
Finally, he said that the look of Emilio El Indio Fernandez and Gabriel Figueroa was inspired on the Russian avant-garde via Sergey Eisenstein's work and his film, ¡Qué viva Mexico! (Long live Mexico!)
"El Indio Fernandez saw it in a previous release in 1933, in Los Angeles and then decided to do the same in cinema. He returned to the city, had an interview with Diego Rivera and started working with Gabriel Figueroa and both created amazing and highlighted images by the low-angle shot, the dignifying rancher, the farmer and the rural world", he added.
Mexico,Distrito Federal
