601. José H. Carvajal | Cafe Bolivar & Galeria

  Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2002 23:30:26 EST   Queridos amigos, congratulation!   ZoneZero es mi site favorito por favor incluyanme en su mailing list mi nombre es Jose H Carvajal, soy un estudiante de fotografia en la ciudad de California ademas tengo un centro cultural que habrio sus puertas al publico el 10 de Diciembre nuestra meta es dar a conocer valores latinoamericanos, ya sea artes platicas, fotografia analoga o digital, musica y poesia.   Me gustaria tenerlos como mentors de este proyecto ya que soy de poca esperiencia.   Atentamente, jose carvajal.  

Sunday, 17 February 2002

603. Cmdte. Hector Coba | Gracias..........Hola PEDRO:

  Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002 21:56:51 -0500   Antes que nada, muchas gracias por leer tan rápido mi e-amil, es de gran motivación para uno que todo el equipo de ZoneZero este pendiente de una nueva admiradora de el arte de la fotografía. Y si, quisiera que la información me la manden por el sistema html, por favor.   Un gusto de nuevo poder conversar con ud. PAO COBA chaiton  

Wednesday, 13 February 2002

605. Manuel Alvarez Bravo: Ironizing Mexico

    The most renowned photographer in the history of Latin America, Manuel Alvarez Bravo is the cornerstone of this art in Mexico. When he began photographing in the 1920s and 1930s, artists who constitute a veritable “who’s who” of the lens immediately acknowledged his innate capacity: Edward Weston, Tina Modotti, Paul Strand, and Henri Cartier-Bresson. The respect that he engendered was encapsulated in Cartier-Bresson’s response when someone likened Alvarez Bravo’s imagery to Weston’s: “Don’t compare them, Manuel is the real artist.” Alvarez Bravo’s unique eye was such that the founder of surrealism, André Breton, sought him out in 1938 to commission an image for the cover of a surrealist exhibition catalogue (he complied with the famous La buena fama durmiendo [The Good Reputation Sleeping], but it could not appear on the cover because of the full-frontal nudity). His recognition by such luminaries notwithstanding, Alvarez Bravo had little visibility within the U.S. prior to the modest 1971 exhibit at the Pasadena Art Museum in California, which later passed through New York’s Museum of Modern Art without causing much of a stir. Subsequent exhibitions at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. (1978) and San Diego’s Museum of Photographic Arts (1990) made Alvarez Bravo a much more familiar figure, and his consecration was assured when he returned to the MOMA in 1997 for the definitive exhibit of 175 photographs. When Alvarez Bravo began photographing in the 1920s, the cultural effervescence that followed the Mexican Revolution (1910-1917) had unleashed a national search for identity, and the question of what to do with Mexico’s inherent exoticism was the burning issue for photographers. Perhaps influenced by his relationship with Weston and Modotti, Alvarez Bravo was the first Mexican photographer to take a militantly anti-picturesque stance, and he achieved international recognition for work which reached creative heights from the late 1920s through the mid-1950s, a period during which he perfected a sophisticated approach to representing his culture. Conscious both of Mexico’s otherness and the way in which that has led almost naturally to stereotypical imagery, Alvarez Bravo has always swum counter to the stream of established clichés, using visual irony to contradict what he initially appears to saying, hence inviting the viewer to engage in the task of interpretation. Consider Sed pública (Public Thirst), the 1934 photo of a boy drinking water from a village well. This image contains all the elements necessary to make it picturesque: a young peasant, dressed in the white clothing typical of his culture, perches on a battered village well to drink the water which flows from it; an adobe wall behind provides texture. But, the light in the image seems to concentrate itself on the foot that juts forward into the frame, a foot that is too particular, too individual to be able to “stand for” the Mexican peasantry, and thus represent their other-worldliness. It is this boy’s foot, not a typical peasant’s foot, and it goes against the expectations of picturesqueness raised by the other elements, “saving” the image through its very particularity. A similar tactic can be observed in Señor de Papantla (Man from Papantla, 1934), where an Indian stands with his back to the wall, facing the camera. Here, as with the image of the boy, the objective elements in the photo would seem to make it picturesque: white peasant clothing, bare feet, and adobe walls, as well as a sombrero and bag woven of reeds. But, having awakened our anticipation of the exotic, Alvarez Bravo cuts back against it with an artistry that rejects the facile. The man refuses to dignify the camera by returning its look. It is often felt that the esthetic strategy in which the subject “retorts” the camera’s gaze is that which most effectively represents people at their most active, because it negates somewhat the camera’s tendency to reduce them to objects. But here, Alvarez Bravo gives us another turn of the screw by presenting us with an Indian who, in looking away, seems to say disparagingly: “Take all the pictures you want, outsider. Who cares what you do?”       Alvarez Bravo’s search for mexicanidad (Mexicanness) led him to reconfigure national symbols. For example, Arena y pinitos (Sand and Pines) is an early image from the 1920s that demonstrates that a young Alvarez Bravo was much influenced not only by pictorialism, but also by the then pervasive interest in Japanese art. Infusing international art forms with Mexican meaning, Alvarez Bravo creates the background to his “bonsai” with what is in essence a mini-Popocatepetl, one of the volcanoes that dominate the Valley of Mexico. Another example is the 1927 photo of a rolled-up mattress, Colchón (Mattress). Here, he chose not to use the beautifully textured, folkloric petate which, woven of wide reeds, provided depth to the still lives created by Modotti and Weston. Instead, Alvarez Bravo photographed a modern mattress, but with the twist that its bands of shading make it look like the well-known Saltillo sarapes. In his recurrent imagery of the maguey cactus we can see his interest in playing with a ubiquitous symbol of Mexican culture; in one photo he “modernizes” the maguey by making it appear as if the central flower stem that sprouts from these plants has been converted into a television antenna.       The politics of Alvarez Bravo are always talked about in relation to his most famous photograph, Obrero en huelga, asesinado (Striking Worker, Assassinated, 1934). Nonetheless, while it is certainly true that he rejects officialist nationalism as completely as he does the picturesque, this image is problematic: its meaning is determined by the title ascribed to it, which may have been influenced by Alvarez Bravo’s involvement in LEAR (League of Revolutionary Writers and Artists) during the 1930s. I would argue instead that the politics of Alvarez Bravo -- and his search for Mexico’s essence --could better be found in the ways he represents the daily life activities of humble people, rather than in overt social commentary. His imagery is a modest, almost transparent portrayal of individuals who he seems to have “found” within their natural habitats rather than to have “created” through conspicuous visual rhetoric. A very understated esthetic that avoids overt expressivity, Alvarez Bravo’s is an all but invisible technique designed to capture anonymous people in ordinary activities, where they are neither romanticized nor sentimentalized. A perfect instance is La mamá del bolero y el bolero (The Mother of the Shoeshine Boy and the Shoeshine Boy), an exquisite image from the 1950s in which a mother visits her son to bring him lunch, and eats with him while he rests from his tasks of shining shoes.     Manuel Alvarez Bravo has been a definitive influence on Mexican and Latin American photography. His rejection of facile picturesqueness, his insistently ambiguous irony, and his redemption of common folk and their daily subsistence have marked out a path of high standards for photographers from his area.   Capsule Biography Born in Mexico City, 4 February 1902. Attended Catholic school from 1908 to 1914, but left in 1915 to work. Begins to educate self in photography, asking advice from photography suppliers, and learning English by reading the labels on developer bottles. The 1923 arrival of Edward Weston and Tina Modotti are crucial to Alvarez Bravo’s development, and he buys his first camera in 1924. Wins first major award in 1931, and decides to pursue photography as full-time career, in part as a still photographer in cinema productions. Meets André Breton in 1939, and his work is included in a Paris Surrealist exhibit. In 1942, the Museum of Modern Art (New York) acquired their first works by Alvarez Bravo and, in 1955, his photographs were included in Edward Steichen’s Family of Man. During 1959, Alvarez Bravo stopped working in the film industry, and became the photographer of important art books for the Fondo Editorial de la Plástica Mexicana, of which he was a founder. Alvarez Bravo left the Fondo in 1980 to work with the Mexican-based media empire, Televisa, where his collection of photography was exhibited and published in a three-volume set. In 1996, Alvarez Bravo’s collection moved to the newly created Centro Fotográfico Alvarez Bravo in Oaxaca City, Mexico.   John Mraz Go to: Happy 100th Birthday Manuel Alvarez Bravo!!         http://zonezero.com/magazine/articles/mraz/alvarezb.html    

Sunday, 03 February 2002

607. David Arriaga

  Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 15:06:57 -0600   Gracias Pedro, de hecho ya estaba pero no en la versión html. Me sorprendió que tu personalmente seas quien responda. Esto hace que el sitio tenga para mí un valor mayor -no es el típico sitio muy bien diseñado pero fríamente alejado de los seres humanos que lo elaboran o que lo visitan. Te felicito y agradezco tu trabajo. Mi gusto por la foto se complace cuando veo ZoneZero.   Por cierto, hace tiempo puse como tapiz de mi compu una foto de unas calaveras de muertos que tomé del sitio. Ingratamente no recuerdo de quién es. Y resulta que me cambiaron el equipo y desapareció el tapiz. ¿Teacuerdas de quién es, para buscarla y volver a ponerla?   Un gran saludo desde TVUNAM,   David Arriaga Depto. de Difusión y Vinculación  

Thursday, 31 January 2002

609. Nikki | Good Morning

  Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 19:19:50 EST   Hello,   Please could you add me to your mailing list.   I am so glad that I am writing to someone real, I think that is what has drawn me to your site, something real.   I must admit I rarely use the internet, outside of checking my mails, even though I am fairly young I seem to have an aversion to all this technical stuff... anyway I am very glad I found you. I was looking up a site from Gerd Ludwig and somehow bumped into Zone-Zero. I'm just finishing a 3 year photography degree in the USA, my intention is to become involved in enviromental and charitable projects, so finding you is a real gift. Now I have the opportunity to see what other people are doing and to be motivated by their good work.   Look forward to hearing all the news and visiting the site often   Best Wishes   Nikki.  

Sunday, 27 January 2002

611. Ezequiel Muñoz | Muy bueno zone zero

  Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 13:11:39 -0930   Mi nombre es ezequiel muñoz y enocntre vuestra pagina la cual me aha parecido muy interesante. Generalmente no me quedo en sitios fotograficos que tienen mucho texto, pero zone zero es la excepcion, los editoriales muy interesantes, los portfolios, la calidad , me han dejado muy satisfecho (debo seguir volviendo pa terminar de recorrer sus paginas) Soy fotografo, de buenos aires, argentina.Y junto a un amigo hacemos una revista solo de fotos (EMviciones) la cual esta en la web tambien, y seria un placer si les gusta, mandarles algunos numeros.   Pueden darle una vista en www.emviciones.freeservers.com desde ya gracias por vuestra publicacion, y un deseo de paz en este 2002   ezeq  

Sunday, 20 January 2002

613. Damara Hall

  Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 16:06:36 -0800 (PST)   I would be interesting in registering with you so that I might be on your mailing list. I didn't have much time so I had to explore your website quickly, but I liked what I saw. I was initially caught byt he fact that it is in both English and Spanish and it was for this reason that I gave it a closer look. I'll definately be back for more. And again, please register me.   Damara Hall  

Tuesday, 08 January 2002

615. Does the original matter?

    The image above was taken at a wonderful Natural Science Museum in La Plata, Argentina, which I was led to believe housed the world's largest herbivore dinosaur, the Argentinosaurus. It didn't, but a few interesting anecdotes related to that visit are worth mentioning.   This plant eater, weighed in at 100 tons, with 130-140 feet in length (40-42 meters) and dates back some 100 million years ago. A spate of mysterious monster finds has placed Argentina on the paleontology map in recent years. Fossilized discoveries over the past decade include Giganotosaurus, the largest dinosaur carnivore; Argentinosaurus, the largest herbivore; and other bones that suggest an even longer species. Thousands of eggs dating back 80 million years litter the land, a discovery that includes the first known impressions of dinosaur embryo skins. "We already recorded that this egg fossil horizon extends more than 20 kilometers. That is the largest dinosaur-nesting site in the world," said Coria, a native Patagonian and paleontologist at the Carmen Funes Museum.   The dinosaur heritage of Argentina may be richer than that of the United States and Canada combined. But natural history programs in the south lack the financial power of their counterparts in the north. Some Argentinean museums must leave dinosaur bones outside and behind their buildings, lacking the money to display them.   "They (Argentineans) have the bones, the Americans have the money," Flessa (former president of the Paleontology Society) said.   Natural history museums in New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Alberta, Canada, have sponsored expeditions throughout Argentina, working together with institutions in Buenos Aires and Patagonia.   As Argentinean law forbids the export of dinosaur fossils, the display uses bone replicas. Flessa said the lack of original parts hardly matters.   "The techniques for making replicas of fossil bones are so good that it almost doesn't matter where the originals are any more," he said. "I don't think that science is hindered by the fact that the Argentinean government won't let dinosaurs outside the country."   The Atlanta museum boasts the first complete display outside of Argentina of a Giganotosaurus, which in the 1990s dethroned T. Rex as the largest known land carnivore.   Hall Train of Dinosaur Productions has lent his skill to reproduce copies of the Argentina dinosaur bones for Fernbank. The dinosaur reconstruction specialist has already produced some impressive works.   Train helped create a $20 million Triceratops for the Jurassic Park display at the new Universal Studios theme park in Orlando, Florida.   "It walks, pees, farts, and breathes. People think it's a real animal," Train said...   The fossil bones have been reproduced in fiberglass and suspended on an iron frame. The finished skeleton weighs several tons.   "We began in a disaster, by casting the largest vertebrae of Argentinosaurus." Lessem (head of the project to reconstruct the two skeletons at the Fernbank Museum in Atlanta, Georgia) said. "The first giant (plastic) bone arrived on Halloween 1998 at Logan Airport in my home town of Boston. It had been smashed to pieces by customs agents who thought it was a modern sculpture possibly containing hidden drugs."   Only 10 per cent of the Argentinosaurus' remains were uncovered from a pebbled-filled block of sandstone. Among them, however, was a piece of the largest backbone ever found – a 1.6 meter high and wide vertebrae which weighs 20 tons. In all, paleontologists recovered a dozen backbone vertebrae, a few limb bones and part of the hips from this one dinosaur.   The obvious conclusion to this story is that in Argentina were the real bones remain, there was nothing much to be seen much to the dismay of my 6 year old child who was disappointed not to find the Argentinosaurus for which he had traveled half way across the world, and in Atlanta where they only have an animated replica, a curious public does find the inspiration to satisfy their imagination, by looking at a fiberglass representation that "walks, pees, farts and breathes".       The Victoria and Albert Museum     When you enter the hall of the "fakes" at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, one is confronted not only with Michael Angelo's masterpieces, among many others, but with the following wall label:   Room 46 Fakes and Forgeries In the 19th century when the Museum was acquiring many of its Medieval and Renaissance masterpieces, it was also purchasing copies, fakes and forgeries in imitation of them. A selection is shown in the central gallery, displayed in cases of about 1870 in a gallery of 1873, redecorated in its original colors. The objects on display range from straightforward "modern" copies of 16th century pieces, acquired by the Museum purposely as copies, and examples that were deliberately made to deceive and evidently did so. Between these two extremes lie works that were produced as modern pastiches of earlier styles –some of which were sold by later owners as thentic examples– and objects that are in part of early data but which have been adapted,   decorated or otherwise "improved". In some cases scientific investigations of materials and techniques or historical and  ocumentary evidence have revealed that the object is not authentic. In other cases uncertainty remains and a few such examples are included here. Often, however, both the choice of the sources used by the faker and the intrusion of stylistic features of his own period show a work to be of later data.Like the casts in the courts on either side, the objects shown here reflect the taste of the 19th century, offering us a Victorian vision of the middle Ages and the Renaissance.       We can glean from this information that reproductions have always been part and parcel of Museums, that the issues regarding a Dinosaur are not that separate and distant from having the statue of David before our very eyes. During the modern era when quality color reproduction in a printed medium became of age, the reproduction of paintings became how most of the world stood to gain access to the works that remained beyond our immediate reach.   Books became a medium of choice to have the work of photographers become known around the world. It was 30 years before I ever got to see an original print by Henri-Cartier Bresson. But then wasn't the "original" print, also a reproduction? Didn't we always call such prints original-reproductions?     The photograph   Aside from the obvious issues of representation that the previous examples make reference to, let us explore now the picture on the cover at ZoneZero. It was taken at the Museo del Plata de Ciencias Naturales, with a small digital camera (Epson 3000z) set at it's widest angle, however, the wide angle lens distorted the angles towards the back of the room, giving it the effect of almost falling over towards the left as can be seen in the image below. When I took the picture, I was careful to align at least one area parallel to the sides of the image ( the cabinet windows), I settled on the left side and let the rest fall where ever it might, knowing that I could fix it later on.       Such a picture in pre-digital times would have required a view camera to correct such a distortion. Today we have the benefit of being able to put the image back to the correct angle such as it was in reality, but we do it using a computer. The benefits are obvious, greater ease of operation with less stuff to carry around and a more modest camera and lens can be used. The results? you judge yourself and compare. Those who have a long history and attachment to a view camera will find such a solution unacceptable.       Conclusion   As I see it, we have been caught in a web of our own making, discussing endlessly the issues of representation. On the one hand are all the debates around the veracity of the image for the sake of factual representation, crisscrossed by all the emotional and moral considerations related to being or not, deliberately mislead in what we think we are looking at.   On the other are all the art market issues related to the original as a way of placing value on objects and their rarity. If we all own the same identical piece, what is to give it a significant variance and therefore premium? if at all. My earliest now fading digital prints, which no one wanted because they were fading due to the inherent limitations of the prevailing inks at the time, have now acquired the distinction of being "vintage" prints, even though faded. What originally was a defect became over time a source to differentiate the work from more recent and better reproductions. Such are the workings of the art market.   Our notions of representation with respect to digital photographs have also been beset with misunderstandings borne out of misinformation. The idea that all digital pictures have to be altered is to not understand the medium at all. The notion that all alterations have to be seen alike is again a lack of understanding that not all alterations are born the same.   I would argue that the original matters only when certain conditions are met. It matters to the art market for reasons explained earlier, it matters to someone who is using the original as proof of something; it does not matter, however, when the information derived from the work is understood for its subjective nature, or for the purpose of educating, or entertainment.   Share with us your points of view in the forums, tell us how you see these matters and how our world is being transformed in its formal representation.   Pedro Meyer January 07, 2002 Mexico City   For comments post a message in our forum section at ZoneZero         http://zonezero.com/editorial/enero02/january.html      

Monday, 07 January 2002

617. Maria Aguirre

  Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2002 21:49:28 -0500   Hola, soy una argentina viviendo y trabajando en The School of the Museum of Fine Arts of Boston. Soy la persona encargada del funcionamiento e impresion de un Iris Printer 3047G con tintas American Pinnacle. Hace un par de meses que vengo chequeando vuestro website y creo que es uno de los mejores, y el respeto y seriedad por el trabajo de otros. Felicitaciones y espero recibir sus email pronto. muchisimas gracias   Maria Aguirre  

Tuesday, 01 January 2002

619. Armando Bona

  Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2001 19:21:28 -0500   Thank you Pedro for these beautiful pages that you post on the internet for all of us to study and admire. I do so much look forward to them and what they have to say.   Abrazos, Armando Bona  

Friday, 21 December 2001

621. Tantra | Refreshingly great photography

  Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2001 18:47:40 -0800   Hello, I would like to register with ZoneZero, as you may have guessed by now. I am thrilled to find experimental photography which is good, digital images that don't just make me feel life isn't very appealing. Because I do digital photography myself, but have been embarrassed to come out and say it too often in the presence of photographers. They can be so upset by the very idea of it. So to save the species, your site comes along, with quality art photography which is not exclusive, but reaches out to all the ways we can combine materials and approaches and come to something new and even breathtaking.   I am sending five of my own pictures for consideration in the portfolio section.   Thank you, Tantra.  

Tuesday, 18 December 2001

623. Maria Eugenia Alonso | Felicitaciones

  Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2001 19:43:27 -0300   Soy María Eugenia Alonso de Argentina,,,   Los felicito infinitamente por este espacio, que a cada visita renueva mis ganas de hacer cosas. Les cuento que soy diseñadora gráfica, hace un año que estudio fotografía, y me estoy dedicando a las realizaciones artísticas en el medio digital, más bien una mezcla: fotos tradicionales escaneadas y trabajadas, ya que aún no poseo toda la tecnología digital (solo la compu).   Bueno, el tema es que através de ustedes me enriquezco y descubro un lugar donde compartir mi interés por este tema. Es verdad que aún no hay plena conciencia de las ventajas del proceso digital de la fotografía, (aquí la mayoría de los cursos enseñan solo la forma analógica) y hay veces que, yo como principiante, me siento fuera de lugar, ya que me manejo más con el lenguaje digital que con los procesos tradicionales. Mientras tanto, sigo aprendiendo por mi cuenta y encuentro en internet el mejor modo de informarme y conectarme. Les agradecería que presenten datos sobre concursos, becas y cursos en la red, que me puedan ayudar a desarrollarme.   Muchas gracias por todo lo que hacen, me gustan mucho las editoriales de Meyer, y la amplitud en la selección de trabajos. Quiero compartir con ustedes mis fotos, así que pronto las enviaré.   Un beso grande y mucha suerte. Eugenia.  

Tuesday, 04 December 2001

625. Nora Luzzi

  Date: Sat, 01 Dec 2001 04:49:54 +0000   Acabo de conocerlos, me interesaria recibir todo lo que sea informativo soy argentina, restauradora de obras de arte y artesana, docente y responsable del taller de restauracion del museo legislativo de la CAMARA DE DIPUTADOS DEL CONGRESO DE LA NACION, ARGENTINA, ME INTERESA TODO LO RELACIONADO C CURSOS BECAS INTERCAMBIO DE CONOCIMIENTOS, ESTOY A SU DISPOSICION.   NORA LUZZI  

Saturday, 01 December 2001