How much is photography a direct reflection of reality, and how much is it a window into the photographer’s subjective vision? Two concurrent shows at the Meadows Museum offer an opportunity to explore these perennial questions through the lens of Mexico, with two different artists providing complementary perspectives.
“Roaming Mexico” is a selection of almost 90 photographs, mostly in color, made over four decades by prominent Dallas photographer Laura Wilson. The sleek exhibition was designed by her collaborator Gregory Wakabayashi. It is displayed in tandem with a smaller show of about 30 black-and-white, folio-sized photographs taken over the long career of Mexico’s most famous photographer, Manuel Álvarez Bravo (1902-2002).
Wilson has predominantly worked in the United States, especially Texas and elsewhere in the West, making portraits and landscapes, series devoted to cowboys and small-town football and expansive views of wide-open spaces. Her view of Mexico, developed over countless visits, is that of a longtime careful observer.
Álvarez Bravo, born and raised in Mexico City, mostly worked in his home country and was affiliated with both surrealists and muralists. His work tends to be more reserved and ambiguous, often giving his photographs enigmatic, thought-provoking titles. While Wilson’s approach emphasizes openness and color, Álvarez Bravo’s black-and-white prints retain a mysterious reserve, inviting closer inspection.
Because of the artists’ differences, it is notable when their two visions overlap, as for instance in the two portraits of young women from the Indigenous communities in the south of the country: Álvarez Bravo’s Margarita of Bonampak and Wilson’s Jaguar Girl, Mérida, Yucatán.
Wilson’s subjects, including this one, are more frequently found smiling than are Álvarez Bravo’s, but in both of these images, the woman’s head is tilted slightly backward. I wondered if this implies a certain social distance or reserve when encountering an outsider from a different culture.
Wilson’s appreciation for festive exuberance, familiar from her Texas photographs, appears in her views of ox-cart parades during the Oaxacan feria de las velas (festival of the candles), a long-standing tradition in southern Mexico.
In contrast, Álvarez Bravo seems to go out of his way to hold back the full splendor of his subjects, as in First Act, where two children at the edge of a stage hide behind a curtain and look on at an unseen performance, or Portrait of the Eternal, whose beautiful subject is almost entirely hidden in shadow, eyes looking away from the camera.
Like Diane Arbus, Wilson has an eye for the uncanny double and the challenge it poses to individuality: How much of one’s personality is unique, and how much is it an instance of a larger type or category? Many of Wilson’s side-by-side portraits raise such questions.
Another way that Wilson plays with doubling and repetition is by printing two separate exposures next to each other on the same piece of paper, as with the two different fire-breathers, captured 20 years apart, in 1985 and 2005. The first of these exposures, made just over the border in Nuevo Laredo on Wilson’s first trip to Mexico, inspired her to begin her decades-long work in the country.
Wakabayashi’s bold exhibition design serves Wilson’s work well. While one can click through countless images on a screen, the immersive effect of a roomful of color is far more encompassing. Shifting visually to Álvarez Bravo’s smaller, more understated, gelatin-silver prints requires a disciplined adjustment of the eye.
Although monochrome images dominated art photography until about the 1970s, today’s color-drenched audiences probably see such works as being about as much of a niche product as a black-and-white movie on a digital streaming service.
Yet the absence of color allows viewers to notice wonderful nuances of tone and texture, much as with earlier forms of printmaking. For instance, the play of shadows and patterns in Álvarez Bravo’s The Man from Papantla is striking, as are the layers of reflections in his Optical Parable.
For U.S. viewers whose vision of Mexico may have been shaped by tropical-resort and border-town imagery, the richness of these two photographers’ distinct but complementary visions offers a refreshing alternative.
Details
“Roaming Mexico: Laura Wilson” and “Manuel Álvarez Bravo: Visions of Mexico” continue through Jan. 11 at the Meadows Museum, 5900 Bishop Blvd., Dallas. $12 for adults; $10 for seniors; $4 for non-SMU students; and free for members, military, youths 18 and under, and SMU faculty, staff and students. Open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Thursday from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m. Free Thursday evenings after 5 p.m. Visit meadowsmuseumdallas.org or call 214-768-2516.
Arts Access is an arts journalism collaboration powered by The Dallas Morning News and KERA.
This community-funded journalism initiative is funded by the Better Together Fund, Carol & Don Glendenning, City of Dallas OAC, The University of Texas at Dallas, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Eugene McDermott Foundation, James & Gayle Halperin Foundation, Jennifer & Peter Altabef and The Meadows Foundation. The News and KERA retain full editorial control of Arts Access’ journalism.
