Manuel Alvarez Bravo - free download of Luna Cornea

Thanks for that. Some images of his I can't remember seeing before. Also looks like some other interesting articles, judging by the photographers included - now I just have to learn to read Spanish!
 
Thanks a lot! I just downloaded it. MAB is one of my favourite Latin American photographers, perhaps THE favourite.

Alex
 
Thanks for the link! If you like Bravo I recommend one of his assistants Graciela Iturbide, especially her books Images of the Spirit and Eyes to Fly With.
 
Very good, we were lucky enough to have a exhibit of Mexican photographers and others that photographed in Mexico about a year ago at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. One that I really liked was Graciela Iturbide.
 
charjohncarter said:
...we were lucky enough to have a exhibit of Mexican photographers and others that photographed in Mexico about a year ago at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. One that I really liked was Graciela Iturbide.
Click to expand...

I remember seeing something like that in SFMOMA a few years ago. There were photos by Alvarez Bravo, and, among other things, a few portraits of Frida Kahlo by his wife, Lola. I don't know why that should surprise me but it did.

And then there was Iturbide. Her photography is like a force of nature, no other way to put it. There's considerable overlap in her work and her mentor's, though she makes women the discursive focal point with respect to questions of mexicanidad and sexuality. Alvarez Bravo is more gender neutral by comparison. Her photos appear also more suggestive of forces irrational, always threatening to erupt violently, uncontrollably. There's often criticism within mexican photography for pintoresquismo and exoticism and perhaps one could take her to task for that but her photography appears more sophisticated than the cases where these elements serve solely commercial purposes and preconditioned responses.

I have just one book of hers (Juchitan) and at some point I thought I'd get a couple of other but never did as my photographic priorities took a turn. This discussion, I admit, is getting me itchy to look up for some of her other books though.

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Graciela just depresses me. I go to Mexico a couple times a year, and don't seem to come away with anything like her photos. Thanks for the above mini-essay, it is interesting. I just liked her photos the best at that show. Nice to have your insight. What is frustrating is she is still doing it, and we are the same age.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiHmqaL8Dz8

This show some of her work, too bad the filmaker messed it up.
 
I'm a huge fan of Mexican photographers with Graciela being my favorite. I recently saw her lecture here in San Francisco's Photoalliance where she mentions that she was tired of photographing people and has moved on to places & objects. Her most recent work was photographing Frida Kahlo's private bathroom from their home in Coyoacán as it was sealed since her death and then subsequently opened recently.

I even have a Tumblr page pretty much dedicated to Mexican photography and the photographs I've taken from trips throughout Mexico. Take a gander if you have time :)

http://alapan.tumblr.com/
 
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Thanks for that link. Don Manuel was a great artist. You can see his influence in practically all subsequent Mexican photographers. When I was around 7 or 8 years old, my parents took my to my first photo exhibit ever: it was Manuel Alvarez Bravo's work at the Mexico City Museum of Modern Art.

It's good to see that there's knowledge and appreciation of his work among RFF members !!
 
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