B&W Photography Magazine

BLACK & WHITE PHOTOGRAPHY MAGAZINE

April 2013 Issue 96 US $7.95 CAN $9.95

TABLE OF CONTENTS FEATURES

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FORMULA ONE MOMENTS A look back at F1’s classic era through the lens of a master photographer, Jesse Alexander, who captured the sport of racecar driving’s glamour, excitement and even danger.

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RUTH’S ETERNAL GRACE The Berlin-born artist photographed MoMA’s first catalog, hung out with Edward Weston and made some of the most luminous nude studies in the medium’s history.

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MEXICAN PHOTOGRAPHY Manuel Alvarez Bravo remains Mexico’s best-known photographers, but a new breed of visual artists is producing imagery as complex and captivating.

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WHO WAS VIVIAN MAIER? A completely unkown during her lifetime, the self-taught Maier created an astonishing body of documentary work that compares favorably with the genre’s masters.

EDITOR

EDITORIAL CONSULTANT SENIOR CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

DEPARTMENTS

CONTRIBUTORS

DEAN BRIERLY HENRY RASMUSSEN RICHARD PITNICK DAVID BEST

COLLEN CREAMER

LORRAINE ANNE DAVIS

FRONT ROW

MICAHEL DIGREGORIO

STUART I. FOLICK

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WHERE PHOTO’S LIVE

MARK EDWARD HARRIS

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DO IT YOURSELF

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PUBLISHER

ADVERTISING/

PRODUCTION MANAGER

SPOTLIGHTS

TOM TOLDRIAN

GINNY GREENFIELD

CONTROLLER

ABBY TOLDRIAN HOLLY LUNDGREEN

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CATHERINE CARTER

CIRCULATION

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PETER GRAVINA

CONTEST MANAGER

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ELSA MOTA GOMES

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STEPHEN HOPKINS

ANNIKA LADEWIG

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NEWS

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BOOK REVIEWS

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IMAGE PROTECTION

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EXPOSURE SECTION

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SUBMISSIONS We do not accept unsolicited editorial submissions. Opportunities to have work selected for publication are provided by our two annual contests: Single Image (Mar 15 - June 15) and Portfolio Contest (Sept 1 - Dec 15). For contest information, call 805.474.6633 NEWS & CALENDAR SUBMISSIONS We welcome news items from the world of photography.

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_FRONT ROW

PROJECT ROOM Were they innocent, irredeemably wicked or perhaps a little of both?

Lloyd Ziff ’s haunting portraits of Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe.

ROOMMATES, LOVERS AND ARTISTIC

for that matter, even picked up a camera), Mr.

collaborators, they were, after all, just kids,

Ziff shot him and Ms. Smith,, in the buff. In that

as Ms. Smith recalled in her coming-of-age tale

sequence of spiritually and sexually charged

plethorpe had lost interest, though he did in-

of that title. Yet Mr. Ziff, an aspiring photogra-

poses, each stands, arms outstretched; or al-

corporate them in later works. And even after

pher at the time, captured in his subjects the

ternately, kneels and prays, wearing the blind-

Mapplethorpe’s death in 1989 from complica-

precocity, and fragility, of a pair of old souls.

fold of a martyred saint.

tions of AIDS, Mr. Ziff was ambivalent about

“They were very beautiful,” he recalled

“Those photographs are moving because

the ‘60s. At that time you didn’t act on it.”

For years his pictures lay dormant. Map-

showing them.

the other day. “They were always making paint-

youth is moving,” said James Danziger, the gal-

ings and drawings and sculptures, and the

lery’s owner. “They make us very aware of the

ered publishing a naked picture of Patti. It just

walls of their apartment were covered with

passage of time.”

wasn’t something you do to a friend.”

their work.”

Now those images are taking on a second life. On view from March 28 to May 4 at the Danziger Gallery in Chelsea, they are a simulta-

“They are, moreover, historic pictures,

As for Ms. Smith, he said: “I never consid-

Decades later, he reversed himself. At

not very well known, but I guess you could call

the tail end of the ‘90s, a heart attack com-

them iconic.”

pelled him to leave art direction and pick up

Making them was a fairly straight-for-

his camera once more. He photographed land-

neous homage to a pair of artists on the cusp

ward process, said Mr. Ziff, who went on to

scapes (his book was called “Near North: Pho-

of fame and to a Manhattan that was uniquely

abandon photography for an influential career

tographs of Alaska and the Yukon” appeared in

hospitable to a raffish generation of youthful

as the art director of magazines, including

2010) portraits and urban scenes.

bohemians in tireless pursuit of themselves.

Condé Nast Traveler, Vanity Fair, House & Gar-

Also on display are a series of portraits Mr. Ziff made in 1969. At the request of Map-

den and Rolling Stone. “ “I don’t think in those days either one of

plethorpe, who had not then made his name

us was aware of our sexuality,” Mr. Ziff said. “I

as a taboo-smashing photographer (had not,

had intimations that I was gay. But that was

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“I just wanted to take all these pictures out from under the bed and show them to people,” he said.

Lloyd Ziff “Patti and Robert”

_ W H E R E P H OTO S L I V E

PICKS OF THE MONTH! Our monthly picks of exhibitions, events and upcoming shows that you should keep an eye out for.

TOWN RECORDS The Brooklyn Museum opened the exhibition, “LaToya Ruby Frazier: A Haunted Capital,” which takes work from Fraziers career thus far and presents it as a subjective history of Braddock, PA, where she grew up. The once bustling steel city near Pittsburgh has fallen mightily and taken its remaining residents with it.

The exhibition combines Frazier’s highly personal portraits of herself and family with her outward-looking work that documents the community’s struggle to persevere in the face of rapid economic decline. Taken as a whole, the exhibition offers a unique combination of private and public narratives and engages viewers with Braddock’s history and present challenges.

Through August 11, 2013 Brooklyn Museum 200 Eastern Prkwy Brooklyn, NY 11238 www.brooklyn museum.org

PARIS PHOTO MOVES WEST Every November, the art fair Paris Photo brings together over 100 galleries and publishers to exhibit at the City of Light’s Grand Palais.

This month, the organizers of Paris Photo are for the first time bringing the fiar to LA. All the activites are centered on the 100-year old Studios at Paramount.

Roughly 20 solo exhibitions will be shown in and around the New York Street backlot, a replica of a New York City street. Part of the Studios at Paramount will be set aside for Young Galleries section, prodviding a showcase for galleries that have been in business for 20 years or less. This is a chance to view international galleries and work without the jet lag.

April 26 to 28, 2013 Studios at Paramount 5555 Melrose Ave Hollywood, CA 90038 www.losangeles.parisphoto.com

CLASSIC EGGLESTON

Through July 28, 2013 Metropolitan Museum of Art 1000 Fifth Ave New York, NY 10028 www.metmuseum.org

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Last year, the legendary photographer William Eggleston stirred up controversy—and got sued by a longtime collector of his work—when he reprinted 36 of his iconic photos as digital prints larger format. The new prints brought in over $5.9 million at auction. Part of what made Eggleston’s early color images seem so revolutionary at the time is that he chose to print them using the dye-transfer process The MoMa is now offering a chance to revisit just what made those vintage dye-transfers so special. The Met acquired 36 vintage prints last year, and it’s exhibiting them now. The scrutinizing vision that Eggleston had is what gives the exhibition its name: “At War with the Obvious: Photographs by William Eggleston.”

_ D O I T YO U R S E L F

THE PINEGG

Using an egg to create your own pinhole camera.

WHAT YOU’LL NEED: • • • • • • • • •

Eggs Wrought brass plate w/ pinhole Rotary tool Liquid Photographic Emulsion (Preferably Rolley’s) Processing Acid Fixer Adhesive Tape A Black Cloth Lots of Patience

Before washing yourself be sure that the

the pinhole is facing what you want to capture

egg’ shell is completely empty. Wash yourself

for about thirty seconds (depending how much

and the interior of the egg.

light there is).

In a dark room paint the interior of the

When I felt that the egg was impressed

shell with the emulsion, in order to make it

enough your scene, I went back to the dark

light-sensitive.

room. There, unwrap the egg, remove the

Now block the opening with a wroughtbrass pin-holed plate, trying to restore the natural egg-ness of the shell. With the black tape seal the structure.

You’ll notice that the shell is really trans-

pinhole (carefully) and fill the egg with the processing acid and the fixing one, in this order.

When it’s done, you should see something appear on the inner surface. You can widen the opening on the egg and take a better look:

parent: to avoid any problem, wrap it with the

the photograph should be there, negative and

black cloth, carefully leaving out the pinhole.

lightly warped by the roundness of the shell.

Take the egg and drill it with a rotary tool

During each stage of this process the egg

At this point I took a photograph (with

(I used a Dremel) in order to obtain a square

could break. Usually it does, so be patient!

a ‘normal’ camera) of the shell and turned it

hole (about 2cm). At this point, usually, you will find yourself covered in egg juice.

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Now take it outside or where there is a lot of light and place the egg and make sure

negative. You can do the same or challenge yourself to find another way to do it.

BLACK & WHITE PHOTOGRAPHY MAGAZINE

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FORMULA ONE MOMENTS WRITTEN BY MARK EDWARD HARRIS PHOTOGRAPHY BY JESSE ALEXANDER

A

lexander at one time actually

spent some time in the cock

pit. “I went to racing school in

Switzerland and drove the Mercedes W196, the same car that Moss and Fangio drove and won so many races with,” he says. But Alexander realized that he was better off behind the lens than behind the wheel of a racecar.

Born in Santa Barbara, California, in 1929, Alexander took up photography just out of high school. His interest in the medium evolved from his fascination with the images illustrating the most popular periodical of mid-20th century America: “I was an avid reader of Life magazine. Back then it was 10 cents a copy. I knew about Eugene Smith, Robert Capa and Edward Steichen. I never studied photography formally. They in a sense were my teachers.”

Alexander began freelancing upon graduating college. From the beginning he combined his passion for photography with his love of sports cars. He used to frequent

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racetracks at Pebble Beach and Palm Springs, taking pictures and familiarizing himself with drivers like Phil Hill and Johnny von Neumann. Alexander’s first big assignment came in 1953, when he photographed the demanding and dangerous La Carrera road race in Mexico. The following year he brought his family with him to Europe to cover the Formula One circuit and other championship events such as the 24 Hours of Le Mans and The Mille Miglia.

“We moved to Switzerland near Interlaken because it was centrally located.

I went over as a freelancer. I had a contract with Sports Cars Illustrated for a while. The magazine became Car and Driver in 1961. I would shoot the races on the weekend and go into the darkroom to print during the week,” he recalls.

In neighboring France, Alexander made many friends with a shared enthusiasm for motorsports and photography, not surpris ing since in essence its denizens invented both. The world’s first motor race took

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place in France in 1894, organized by the Parisian newspaper Le Petit Journal. The 79mile Paris-to-Rouen route had Count JulesAlbert de Dion lumbering across the finish line first, having averaged 12 mph along the way. In 1912 Jacques Henri Lartigue snapped the “Grand Prix de Circuit de la Seine,” perhaps the most famous photograph from motorsports’ early years.

What sets Alexander’s photos apart from the rest of the pack? Apart from their formal excellence — their studied balance of light and shadow to create drama, their impeccable sense of timing — his images evince a fundamental concern with people, not just the superstar drivers, but also the everyday mechanics and the captivated spectators. It’s no surprise that Alexander lists Smith and Lartigue among his prime visual influences. One can see in his pictures a similar concern with narrative and an abundant sense of compassion for all of his subjects.

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Another key factor in his success was the unparalleled access he had to Formula One’s coterie of drivers. As the legendary Stirling Moss wrote in the introduction to Alexander’s book Driven: “The drivers and participants who worked with Jesse during his decade on the European circuits knew him not simply as a highly regarded motor racing photographer, but also as a real enthusiast and a gentleman. He understood motor racing and shared our passion for it.

This, as much as his talent, made him ‘one of us,’ part of the gang.”

Indeed, Alexander’s portraits are often as powerful and dramatic as his racing shots. His photograph of Jim Clark moments after Clark won the 1962 Belgian Grand Prix captures his physical and emotional exhaustion, vivid testament to the price that F1 drivers paid in pursuit of success. A post-race shot of Stirling Moss at Goodwood, England, in 1958, evokes the joy of victory and the camaraderie between

racer and crew. And Alexander’s photo of Princess Grace handing the winner’s trophy to Jackie Stewart at the 1966 Monaco Grand Prix is a brilliant distillation of grit and glamour.

In the 1960s Alexander switched to a Canon SLR to document the action on the track, allowing him to work with Canon’s longer lenses and explore spatial dynamics. Alexander explains how he was able to successfully convey the speed and drama of a race: “You have to get yourself to the right place at the right time, so knowledge of the racecourse and the drivers is a must.

It’s important to plan ahead and to try and figure out where a car is going to be and then pre-focus on that area. When doing a pan shot to show speed I would pre-focus at the point where I figured I was going to press the button. Also, while it’s quite rare that a photographer gets hurt, you have to pay attention and be careful and think about where you want to stand.”

In 1955 Alexander was covering the 24 Hours of Le Mans when the most tragic event in racing history occurred, a crash that sent Pierre Levegh’s disintegrating Mercedes into the grandstands, killing more than 80 spectators and injuring another 120.

Levegh also died.

“I saw the smoke but I was not in the area of the accident,” recalls Alexander. “I really wasn’t aware of what had happened until I got back to the pits. Nobody really knew the extent of it for about 12 hours because it was just horrific. It happened within the first two hours I believe. The officials made a decision to continue the race, because if everybody left it would have jammed up the roads, which would have created even more problems for the emergency vehicles.

“There were some very bad accidents that happened when I was in Europe. Jackie Stewart, who started his career in fifties.”

While the 50s, 60s and 70s comprised Formula One’s classic era, they were also

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“Phil had style.

He loved clas- sical music and grand opera. He knew engines, as well as knowing how to drive a racecar.”

its deadliest. To date, 49 drivers have died while driving a Formula One car, either during a race, practice, qualifying or testing.

Few of those fatalities occurred after 1978.

Somewhat surprisingly, the drivers of that era had differing perspectives on the risks they faced on the track.

Studying each photo up close on a gallery wall gives one an appreciation for how well Alexander was able to freeze unique slices of history. “Phil had style. He loved classical music and grand opera. He knew his engines as well as knowing how to drive a racecar.” His photos not only show us the racecars and drivers, the pit crews and fans, but also the physical beauty of the host cities, as in his image of the start of the 1962 Monaco Grand Prix, in which the homes and apartments seem to tower over the starting grid. “I was drawn to them,” Alexander says.

“The big advertisements on the walls were all part of the scene. That period really was a golden age. Such atmospherics help view-

ers connect on a distinctly emotional level with this long-vanished era.

The term is kind of a cliché, but it’s valid. We were a tight-knit group. It was a small community and we were all friends — the drivers, the mechanics and the journalists. We were sort of an extended family. I had total access to go where I wanted to go.

There are many more media people these days and there’s a hierarchy of who gets to go where. There is so much more money and so many more people involved. It’s a different world.”

All photography © Jesse Alexander, courtesy of Fahey/Klein Gallery, Los Angeles.

(www.faheykleingallery.com) To see of more

of Alexander’s racing photography, as well as

his travel, landscape, portrait and bird imagery, visit www.jessealexander.com.

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Francisco Mata Rosas “Viva Mexico”

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MEXICAN PHOTOGRAPHY NOW RICHARD PITNICK

THERE ARE 22 MILLION PEOPLE LIVING IN MEXICO CITY, A METROPOLIS OF DREAMS, MYTHS AND metaphors through whose streets flow an endless stream of imagery and symbols. It is the graphic images encountered throughout the streets of the city — the garish tabloids with photos of violence and sexuality; the T-shirts, advertisements and posters adorned with pictures of Mexican wrestlers, history’s martyrs and incarnations of death; the graffiti gracing the walls of the city, rich in symbols of revolution, faith and hope and new messages for the future — that help the inhabitants of Mexico’s capital navigate through the pull of suffocating anonymity that inflicts any large and overcrowded city, to find connection and meaning.

Francisco Mata Rosas from “Mexico Tenochtitlan”

“Mexico is so intense, so constantly changing and evolving, that trying to understand the world outside and how to belong to it is very complex,” explains photography dealer Patricia Conde, who owns and operates the only gallery in Mexico City specializing exclusively in contemporary fine art and documentary photography.

“As residents of Mexico City we have so much to say, and so many stories to tell that speak to a knowledge and understanding that comes from our souls and is expressed through the rituals, colors, habits and patterns of behavior that are central to Mexican culture. Documentary photography offers a fascinating way of understanding and telling these stories, and creating new identities.”

In a country where history and time are compressed, where symbols, dreams and myths are united as one, documentary photography, by nature and circumstance, is inherently concerned with poetry.

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“I think Mexico is a country with great strength, and this is reflected in our photography and our way of looking,” says Patricia Aridjis, whose photographic studies chronicling the struggles of women engage the broader issues confronting most individuals in Mexican society.

“Currently, there are many photographers with very diverse styles or ways of looking at our own culture. Contemporary and classic, young and old. Mexican photography is special because there are very unique issues in our country. I think we have a very good standard, as good as anywhere in the world.”

Building upon the traditions of all the graphic arts in their country, Mexican photographers are mining their own experiences in both autobiographical and socially topical ways, recontextualizing historic images and symbols found throughout the city in ways that find new meanings and relevance in the rich visual legacy of Mexican culture.

Francisco Mata Rosas from “Mexico Tenochtitlan”

“I think documentary photography remains such a strong element among Mexican photographers because of the contradictions of our society and our political system, and the huge inequalities and our need to tell our stories to understand the roots of our conflict,” explains Francisco Mata Rosas, an accomplished Mexico City-based photojournalist and documentarian who has chronicled the social complexities of life in urban Mexico for several decades.

But to fully come to terms with where Mexican photographers are taking the medium, one must first look to the past. Specifically, to a December morning in 1531, when legend has it that a poor Aztec Indian named Juan Diego had the first of several miraculous encounters with the Virgin Mary on a hilltop of Mexico.

The Virgin asked Juan Diego to go see church authorities and request that a place of worship be built upon the hill in her honor.

Despite repeated encounters and entreat-

ies by her emissary, church officials remained skeptical, insisting that Juan Diego return with proof of his encounter with the Virgin. Juan Diego returned the following day with the requested sign — a rose and thorn-filled cloak, that when emptied at the feet of the archbishop revealed an image of the Virgin Mary miraculously imprinted on the inside of the cloak.

Although decidedly apocryphal, the cloak with the image of the Virgin Mary (its method of creation and longevity still unexplained) is still displayed in what is the largest and most important religious shrine in all of Mexico and Latin America atop the very hill where Juan Diego first encountered the Virgin. Beyond its religious meaning, the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe is significant as the first link in a continuous chain of iconic imagery and graphic arts practices unique to Mexican identity, art and culture and that lead directly to the practice of photography in Mexico.

“I like to tell stories and create fantasy worlds in which there’s an ele- ment of terror or subtle violence.” ­ —Cannon

Bernáldez

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Francisco Mata Rosas “The complexity of cultural hybridizations, the mixture of ancient and modern, and the ritual of daily life and politics form the axis of my projects and are some of the factors that have motivated my work,” says Francisco Mata Rosas, an accomplished Mexico City photojournalist who has lived his entire life in Mexico City.

In projects like “Metro,” a study of the city’s vast underground subway system, Mata Rosas illuminates the dialectic syncretism that informs all levels of Mexican culture and society.

“Being a regular user of the subway, I was curious to observe and develop a chronicle of the city from this angle, comparing attitudes of people in other spaces while creating a fiction on my own journey.

My vision tries to incorporate a traditional reference in a contemporary context, showing the cultural blends that are a product of the great diversity in our country,” adds Mata Rosas.

“In Mexico City in particular, urban popular culture as a product reflects the combination of identities and cultural and ritual practices of our diverse origins. The metaphoric or visual contradictions are generated involuntarily, and it is precisely the metaphorical nature of the language of black and white, the theatricality and drama that is obtained by translating ‘real’ color to grayscale that appeals to me.”

Given the depth and complexities of Mexican society, Mata Rosas believes that photography remains the preeminent medium to explore the tensions and issues that continue to shape and influence the country. (www.franciscomata.com.mx)

Francisco Mata Rosas from “Mexico Tenochtitlan”

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Francisco Mata Rosas “La Ciudad Mexico”

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Francisco Mata Rosas “La Ciudad Mexico”

Yolanda Andrade “La Revelacion”

Cannon Bernaldez from the series “Miedos”

Cannon Bernaldez from the series “Miedos”

Cannon Bernáldez Forging an aesthetic link to the past combined with a more modernist inquiry into the nature of being and photographic representation are the hallmarks of Cannon Bernáldez’ art. In her series “Miedos,” she constructs an autobiographical narrative that is part Victorian flight of fancy and part psychologically fraught fairy tale. In “Botanica,” a series of imaginary, otherworldly landscapes, Bernáldez also looks back to the Victorian era by paying homage to 19thcentury exploratory photography.

“I like to tell stories and create fantasy worlds in which there’s an element of terror or a subtle violence,” she explains. “I’m also interested in the photographic act and the process of acting out these fears, partly as exorcism, and partly as a way to live in peace with the real world. I want my selfportraits to reflect these fears that I have of dying or being abandoned.”

“I’m interested in telling stories that are familiar, that reflect the constant preoccupations I have living in a city like Mexico City,” she says. “Unfortunately, we live here in an everyday reality that’s very violent, so I support myself in the information around me, the tabloid press and its photojournalism. I always have a notebook and a small digital camera with me wherever I go, so I can take photographic notes of things that

catch my eye. Reviewing my notes, I’m always surprised by the recurring elements and central themes of violence, death, abandonment and fear.”

Beyond contemporary issues and concerns, Bernáldez also delves into the history of photography and photographic techniques, particularly 19th-century antiquarian processes.

“In ‘Botanica’ I wanted to represent the personal and ideological vision of the landscape of 19th-century photographers by inventing scenarios and models and imagining myself as an expeditionary photographer from that era. Working with notes and samples, and gathering huge quantities of organic material, I integrated these elements into installations that I painted and assembled. I used a large-format camera and 19thcentury printing techniques to give the images historical references.”

Regardless of subject matter, Bernaldez emphasizes her desire to forge a creative continuity with the past, and to frame contemporary concerns within the history of the medium in ways that make the case for the continued relevance of fine art photography. (www.cannonbernaldez.com)

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Yolanda Andrade “Untitled”

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Yolanda Andrade “El Nino de Oriente”

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Yolanda Andrade “Yo Soy”

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Yolanda Andrade No contemporary Mexican photographer has delved deeper into the psychology of the Mexican experience than Yolanda Andrade. For more than two decades, she has chronicled the carnivalesque atmosphere of life in Mexico City in ways that illuminate the unique intersection of modernity, history, faith and tradition that form the basis of the city’s culture.

“Mexico City is a fascinating place to take photographs,” acknowledges Andrade, a former Guggenheim Fellowship recipient and recipient of the National Endowment for the Culture and the Arts in Mexico, which in 2002 published a book of her Mexico City work, Mexican Passion.

“You find in the streets a mixture of political, social, religious and traditional celebrations all going on at the same time.

My main subject matter has been images of death, the role of masks in Mexican culture, sexual identity, religious celebrations, and the use of images in social and political demonstrations.”

In her ongoing documentation of Mexican culture, Andrade explains that her viewpoint and interest have evolved to incorporate the broader range of cultural and sociological influences that are shaping and redefining her country.

“My wish is to integrate into my photographs the various disciplines that interest me, such as theater, literature, film, visual arts, popular culture and mass media. I also want to explore more fully the influence that high art has on popular art, as well as how it influences the traditional visual arts.” (www.yolandaandrade.viewbook.com)

All photographers whose images appear here

are represented by the Eponymous Gallery. Our sincere thanks to Patricia Conde for her valu-

able assistance in the preparation of this article.

For more information, please visit: Yolanda Andrade “La Iniciacion”

www.patriciacondegaleria.com.

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