ART REVIEW : From Mexico, Photography With a Social Conscience

When considering the artistic traditions of Mexico, photography isn’t exactly the first thing that comes to mind, but as can be seen in several exhibitions inspired by the coming “Mexico: Splendors of Thirty Centuries” show, quite a bit of worthwhile photography has come out of Mexico over the past century.

Some of the strongest work being produced there is showcased in “Between Worlds: Contemporary Mexican Photography,” a group exhibition featuring work by 16 artists on view at the Santa Monica Museum through Nov. 24.

Brilliantly curated by Trisha Ziff, the show purports to offer an insider’s view of Mexico free of Eurocentric biases that depict Mexico as we in the U.S. are comfortable believing it exists. On that score the show succeeds admirably--these searing images permanently erase any cliched notions one might have of Mexico as little more than a cheap place for an exotic vacation.

Photography arrived in Mexico just three years after it surfaced in Europe. However, it remains a luxury. Materials, when available, are extremely expensive, and there are few outlets for photographers’ work. This fact, coupled with the racism that’s been directed at Mexico for centuries, may offer some explanation for the fact that Mexico has produced just one photographer of international reputation--Manuel Alvarez Bravo.

The upside of this situation is that because the pressures of the marketplace are less intense, artists are more likely to develop a style free of commercial considerations.

While the handful of artists here who favor straight portraiture aren’t too far removed from popular photographic conventions of the U.S., the majority of this work is more in line with that of Brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado in its raw depiction of suffering. These pictures were obviously not made to be sold.

The visual rhetoric of this work is remarkably straightforward--there’s a rigorous humility to these photographs, and the artists largely refrain from leaving any sort of stylistic thumbprint on their subject matter. The images rarely degenerate into the picturesque, nor do they romanticize suffering or resort to generalities--rather, they’re disturbingly specific (each of the photographers explores a single, clearly defined theme). Consequently, the tragedy that colors much of life in 20th-Century Mexico comes across with palpable intensity.

One needn’t examine this show too closely to surmise that Mexico has reaped few of the benefits of mass media (or the Industrial Revolution, for that matter), but suffered all the negative consequences of those world changes.

These pictures are filled with evidence of poor sanitation and pollution run rampant, corrupted regional identities and traditions, and hardship that defies belief. We see people working under conditions that vanished with the Dark Ages for most of the civilized world, cities ravaged by a poverty on par with that of India.

Women’s lib is completely unheard of in rural Mexico where women are silently suffering work horses; the idea of martyrdom that lurks just beneath the surface of many of these images is particularly intense in the pictures of women. They work round the clock, accompanied through their torment by their crucifixes. Always, they pray, and the perversely twined motifs of Surrealism and Catholicism shape many of these photographs (and needless to say, bring to mind the work of the great Spanish filmmaker Luis Bunuel).

Among the most moving bodies of work on view are Mariana Yampolsky and Alice Ahumada’s visual essays on women in the villages of Mazahua and Hidalgo. Two of Mexico’s countless rural communities occupied exclusively by women, children and the elderly, these villages lost all their able-bodied men to cities where they were forced to go in search of work to support families, which many men eventually abandon. Equally powerful are Jose Hernandez Claire’s series on the blind in Chiapas, a region that suffers an unusually high incidence of blindness caused by a local mosquito, and Marco Antonio Cruz’s photos of migrant Guatemalan laborers who tend the German coffee plantations established in Mexico in the ‘30s. In a similar vein, Eniac Martinez documents the lives of illegal Oaxacan laborers in America; Martinez’s image of a worker living in a ditch in San Diego, wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the words “I’ve Been Framed,” says it all. Ruben Ortiz explores the commercialization of miracles, and how the concept of the miracle has been drained of meaning, while several artists contribute images to “Megalopolis,” a segment devoted to Mexico City, which is one of the largest cities on earth. The most amazing image in this sequence is by Cruz--a surreal scene of a Good Friday observance in Iztapalapa.

Perhaps the most disturbing work on view is that of Pedro Meyer, whose ongoing series on the U.S. is a scathing indictment of a country that exerts a crushing influence on his own. Meyer views the U.S. as the world’s worst ideological and cultural polluter, and depicts it as a place of ubiquitous weaponry, gluttony and loneliness. In Meyer’s essay in the exhibition’s excellent catalogue, he expresses a burning hatred for the U.S.

Not all the work here is downbeat; Adrian Bodek’s portraits of veterans of Zapata’s army of the Mexican Revolution of 1910 exude a moving dignity, while Pablo Ortiz Monasterio’s pictures of the Huichol Indians pulsate with the metaphysical rhythm of ritual--these brightly clothed people are like walking rainbows. It’s in these images of this remote tribe--one of the few that remains relatively untouched by Mexico’s ever increasing homogenization--that we get some idea of all that’s been lost in this fragile country.

Mexico as it was during the first decade of this century is the subject of “Mexican Life and Culture During the Porfiriato: The Photography of C.B. Waite, 1898-1913,” a fascinating exhibit on view at the Southwest Museum through Nov. 17.

Born in Ohio in 1861, Waite developed his skills working as a landscape photographer in California and the Southwest. In 1898 he traveled to Mexico, where he was to remain until 1913. (Given that he was in Mexico for three years of the Revolution that erupted in 1910, it’s surprising the important historical event doesn’t figure in this show.) While in Mexico, Waite worked for several Mexican newspapers, did free-lance assignments documenting scientific expeditions for the U.S. in Mexico, and sold images to periodicals and travel guides.

Though Waite’s images are of great historical interest, he didn’t have much of an eye--his framing and cropping tend to be predictably symmetrical, and he invariably shoots his pictures from a respectful distance. Nor was he a particularly hard-hitting documentary photographer. Attracted to grand vistas and seemingly endangered ways of life, he basically had the visual sensibilities of a tourist--there’s nothing remotely harsh in any of these images.

The term Porfiriato that appears in the exhibition title refers to Porfirio Diaz, the Mexican dictator who succeeded in attracting foreign capital to help bankroll the industrialization of Mexico, and engineered a period of unbridled economic progress that was beneficial to the few and pure hell for the many. Porfirio set the stage for the Mexican Revolution, the seeds of which are clearly evident in Waite’s images of vendors selling modest handmade goods in a country of newly built factories and ornate government buildings.

Thoughtfully curated by Michael Heisley and Craig Klyver from the Southwest’s extensive holdings of Waite’s work, the show is broken down into eight sections (market scenes, urban life and customs, etc.). However, the huge disparity between the classes in Mexico at the beginning of this century is a glaring presence in every section. And, comparing these images with those on view at the Santa Monica Museum, one is struck by how little change 80 years has brought to Mexico, where the many continue to labor to make life pleasant for the few.

On view at the Black Gallery through Oct. 13 is work by five L.A. artists who photograph Mexico and/or Mexican culture in the U.S. Standouts of the show include Tony Gleaton’s photographs of Mexicans of African descent, Teresa Ramirez’s images of daily life in the states of Jalisco and Guanajuato, and Roland Charles’ pictures of the streets of Mexico City at night, when this violent, roiling metropolis is transformed into a shimmering jewel box of light.

The Santa Monica Museum of Art: 2437 Main St., Santa Monica; to Nov. 24; (213)-399-0433. Open Wed. and Thur. 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., Fri., Sat., and Sun. 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. The Southwest Museum is at the corner of Marmion Way and Museum Drive in Highland Park; to Nov. 17; (213-221-2164 . Open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Closed Mondays. Black Gallery: 107 Santa Barbara Plaza; to Oct. 13; (213)-294-9024. Open Wed. through Sat. 2 to 7 p.m.; Sun. noon to 3 p.m.