Three Mexican Photographers at Nicholas Metivier Gallery (March 1-24)

The Nicholas Metivier Gallery will host the exhibition “Three Mexican Photographers: Antonio Caballero, Graciela Iturbide and Enrique Metinides”.
WHEN: March 1-24, 2012 / opening reception and talk by Dr. David Dorenbaum, Thursday March 1 at 5:30pm. (416) 205-9000

WHERE: 451 King Street West, Toronto, Ontario, M5V 1K4

“Each of these three photographers tells the story of subjectivity. Their images create a high tension that confronts the viewer with his or her own contradictory feelings”, says the Nicholas Metivier Gallery´s presentation.

Antonio Caballero (1940) began his career in adolescence at the agency Fotopress. From photojournalism he moved to fashion, social events and the world of cinema. Finally he became known as a master in the genre of fotonovela. The fotonovela is a small graphic novel depicting a simple story structured around an intrigue or dramatic moment. They were popular in Italy, Spain and throughout Latin America from the 1940’s through the 1980’s.

Graciela Iturbide (1942) refers to her photographic activities as a “manner of being in the world.” Iturbide enrolled in cinema studies on the late 1960’s under Manuel Alvarez Bravo. However, from very early on it became clear that Iturbide had her own photographic language. In the 1970’s Graciela Iturbide immersed herself in the lives of indigenous populations. Later we can see a shift in her work towards the evocative power of landscape. Her work emerges from the savoir of someone who understands, on the one hand the power of the instant, and on the other the atemporal nature of our deepest longings.

Iturbide received the Hasselblad Foundation award in 2008 and a retrospective view of her work was featured in the 2011 edition of Les Rencontres d’Arles. Her work in held in such collections as the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Enrique Metinides (1934) published his first photograph at age 12. He began by photographing car crashes, and over the span of fifty years, explored  the fragility of the inhabitants of Mexico City for the Nota Roja or Bloody News. At first glance his focus seems to be on the catastrophic nature of the event, however, on closer examination, one can observe the centrality of the onlookers in his images. Likewise, our own perspective shifts as we enter into a time warp set in motion by that which has already happened. Metinides’ photographs of disasters induce in the viewer a collision of forces that allure and repel us. His work was featured in the 2011 edition of Les Rencontres d’Arles.