The Collection. Modern Mexican Photography. Image, Vital Processes and Expressive Autonomy

This exhibition is based on a selection of works taken from the vast photographic collection of the museum—regarded as one of the largest collections in the world of modern Mexican photography. The collection was made possible by Manuel Álvarez-Bravo's 1973 donation of artworks. The collection has been growing since then, with new acquisitions being added every year. Today, the collection contains a vast number of photographic images created between the 1930s and the 1990s. It offers an extensive and diverse landscape of photographic activity in Mexico.

A survey of Mexican photography of the Twentieth Century, this exhibition presents more than 49 Mexican photographers like Manuel Álvarez-Bravo, Tina Modotti, Kati Horna, Héctor García, Lola Álvarez-Bravo, Mariana Yampolsky, Rodigo Moya, Armando Salas-Portugal, Graciela Iturbide, Enrique Metinidies, Pablo Ortiz-Monasterio, among many others. Likewise, it also showcases the work of some international photographers, among these, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walter Reuter, and Ruth Bernhard.

According to Eugenia Macías, who was in charge of the curatorship, the modern condition of the photographic was activated through explorations carried out by photographers from the first decades of the Twentieth Century, which centered on the specific qualities of photography in connection to other visual expressions.

The exhibition approaches photography as a method to capture and document events, and not solely as a form of representation; here each photographer has a unique point of view and interprets an event or character with his/her own gaze.

The exhibition is constructed around four thematic centers:

Alternative Interpretations of the Real. where several pieces are grouped together to work as metaphors, as montages. Here, we observe formal and technical experimentations and the use of radical languages.

Communities and Identities. This group of works establishes rhetorical expressions of human nature, the stories that have traditionally allowed photography to record ways of life and human qualities; stories and experiences filtered through images.

Report and Documentary. This section showcases the informative nature of images and makes visible that which is not exposed. Toward the 1950s and 1960s, the documentation of historical and social events coincided with the diversification and expansion of the photographic profession in Mexico.

Revisited Surroundings, Views, and Landscapes as Epic Manifestations of the Space. This theme appears during the Twentieth Century. Several photographers joined to explore the expressive independence of the photographic medium; through experimentation with architectural, industrial, constructive, and space elements.

Through these four thematic centers, we are offered a window into the various gazes of artist who collectively construct a panoramic view of modern Mexican photography.