One of the ‘Sillier’ Reviews of the Season

While Christopher Knight is entitled to his opinion, even going so far as calling the “Mexico Through Foreign Eyes” exhibition “one of the sillier shows of the season,” as curators of the exhibition and authors of the accompanying catalogue of the same name, we feel we must correct the many factual errors in his review (“Mexico Show Not a Pretty Picture,” Calendar, March 31).

“ ‘Mexico Through Foreign Eyes’ might be most succinctly described as a NAFTA show,” Knight writes. This is an interesting but unfounded assertion since we began working on the exhibition in 1989, long before NAFTA became an issue.

He writes further: “A sentimental travelogue masquerading as a photography exhibition, it seems less interested in examining works of art than in selling a mythologized picture of Mexico.” Perhaps Knight thinks that we are in the services of the Mexican government?

As independent curators and editors, we have been responsible for presenting the work of photographers of the caliber of William Klein and Sebastiao Salgado. Between the two of us, we have authored or co-authored seven books on photography. Knight impugns our integrity by suggesting that we are “marketing the image of a country currently in the forefront of popular consciousness” when in fact, for the 3 1/2 years spent researching this exhibition, Mexico was far from the forefront of popular consciousness.

Knight might also be interested to know that when “Mexico Through Foreign Eyes” opened in Mexico City, the exhibition was criticized for focusing too much on an older Mexico and excluding its modern economy--for being what might be characterized as “anti-NAFTA.”

Knight’s commentary also states that the viewer is “coaxed to search for a missing common denominator that makes Cartier-Bresson and Modotti, Levitt and Siskind somehow alike. Maybe it’s something in the water?” We never suggest that all of these photographers are alike. In fact, we emphasize the multiplicity of vision by these and many other photographers throughout the history of the medium. The only constant is their attraction to Mexico.

As our introduction to the catalogue puts it, the exhibition’s intent is “to sample how so many have envisioned the country and in various ways have been inspired by it.” The 14 separate catalogue essays and other texts by writers from Mexico, Europe and the United States on subjects ranging from native religions and surrealism to the burning of the Lacandon rain forest further make it clear that there is no homogenizing principle.

As for Knight’s aforementioned “water” joke, it hardly adds to the process of “examining works of art” that he suggests should be at the exhibition’s core.

Knight also claims that “few (of the exceptional photographs) are likely to be a surprise.” In fact, while Knight may not consider them exceptional or surprising, many of the artists--Andre Kertesz, Kent Klich, Arthur Tress, Via Wynroth, among many others--have never exhibited their Mexican work in this country. What’s more, one of the show’s curators discovered Kertesz’s pictures on contact sheets and had them printed for the first time for this exhibition. Specialists in Mexican photography in the United States, Mexico and Europe have generally been surprised at the large proportion of the work that had never been seen before.

Knight need not like the exhibition. He might have chosen, however, to critique it with more respect, beginning with the facts. (Even the telephone number given for the Armand Hammer Museum of Art, where the exhibition is currently on view, is incorrect. It is actually (310) 443-7000.)