Mexican Photography exhibition in China |
Written by Pilar Jiménez |
Exhibition is held at the Guangdong Contemporary Art Museum
The present diversity and vitality of Contemporary Mexican photography can be seen in an exhibition with 450 images of 45 different photographers, brought together for the first time ever in China by master photographers Pedro Meyer and Francisco Mata.
The title of the exhibition is The Gaze of 45 Mexican Photographers and it is held at the Guangdong Contemporary Art Museum, one of the three most important museums of the Asian Giant. The curators managed to gather an all-inclusive collection with the work of photographers of different ages, styles and temperaments, yet, this collection sums up the plurality and rigor of Contemporary Mexican Photography.
"The map drawn by the curators of this show takes us to an intense voyage through the visual cartography of Mexico in the 20th and 21st Centuries" , said Wang Rui , photography critic and curator, who is considered China's top expert in Mexican Photography.
The show features printed and framed works by 15 Contemporary Mexican photographers (150 images) and the digital projection of the works of another 30 photographers (300 images), which means that this is the biggest-ever Mexican Photography exhibition held in China.
The show features classics by Antonio Turok, Eniac Martinez and Mata and Meyer themselves, works by Patricia Aridjis and Enrique Villaseñor, the very Mexican vision of Yolanda Andrade, Jesus Hernandez Claire and Raul Ortega, the provocative images of the brothers Gerardo and Fernando Montiel Klint, and the imaginary scenes of Oscar Guzman. A digital slide show is projected in one of the halls of the museum and features the work of photographers such as Victor Mendiola, Gilberto Chen, Jose Carlo Gonzales, Vida Yovanovich, Pablo Ortiz Monasterio and Ernesto Muñiz, among others.
"I think it is vital that in this moment of rapid development taking place in China, not only in its economy but also in the field of the arts, we establish a new bridge of communication with the Chinese public and critique by making known the relevance of the Mexican Photographic tradition ", Meyer explains.
Meyer is satisfied by the results of the project that began a year ago and which had the support of the Museum and the Mexican Foreign Office, which supplied the airplane tickets for the 10 photographers that attended the opening. Meyer has established himself as an active promoter of this Mexican Art form in this Asian country.
Meyer also has a lot of interest in Chinese Photography
"I've seen fantastic stuff, I believe these artists have such drive and pace, that they will find their own way very quickly, even though they are going through a phase in which they still need to find referents, nonetheless, the Image is a part of them, they think and write in pictographic images, in graphic terms."
"Their idiosyncrasy is similar to the Mexicans', that is why we can identify with them more easily than with a Frenchman ore even an American, and our language and understanding is more direct", he added.
Meyer is devoted to photography and, last year he was participated in the Photography Festival of Pingyao and edited al book-catalogue of his own work. In late, 2008 the Mexican photographer will exhibit a retrospective of his work in the Fine Arts Museum of China, the most important of this Asian country.
Meyer has been a promoter of the Mexican photography over the last 30 years, since he took the Latin American images to the Venice Biennale of 76. Meyer continues his tireless work in his Web site www.zonezero.com.
Pilar Jiménez / Correspondent
http://zonezero.com/magazine/articles/45miradas_reforma/index.html
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