B E Y O N D B O U N D A R I E S
February 11, 2010
3:30 – 7 PM
Annenberg Auditorium
Exhibition on photography in Mexico
(in conjunction with Beyond Boundaries)
On view February 10-13, 2010
Lynn Krywick Gibbons Gallery, Cantor Arts Center
Reception: February 12, 5-6 PM, Cantor Arts Center
All events are free and open to the public | http://art.stanford.edu
Beyond Boundaries is a symposium on photography in Mexico that addresses cross-cultural experiences beyond the geographical, political, and social borders between Mexico and the U.S. including class and gender contrasts present in both sides of the border. As Professor Enrique Chagoya states, “this event will present an insider’s view of a country and culture that has been negatively portrayed in the U.S. media (particularly intensified since 9/11), with xenophobic overtones against undocumented workers, or with fear mongering images of a border vulnerable to drug dealers’ violence, or terrorist infiltrations. In this case, the focus is on the artistic visions that capture different aspects of one of the most visually rich cultures in the world.”
Beyond Boundaries brings together three distinguished Mexican photographers Federico Gama, Lourdes Grobet, and Eniac Martinez, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s senior curator of photography Sandra Phillips to campus for a discussion on photography by Mexicans and non-Mexicans in this south of the border country.
Currently working as a freelance photographer for newspapers, magazines, and books, Federico Gama has been a documentary photographer of urban youth and themes since 1988. His work is widely recognized, and has received numerous awards, among them, first place in the International Biennial of Photography in Puerto Rico and Centro de la Imagen’s 10th Photography Biennale; and most recently, in 2009, a nomination for the grand prize by the Art Gallery of Ontario and All Roads Photography Award by the National Geographic Society. Gama has been in 20 individual and 33 group exhibitions in Mexico, Argentina, Guatemala, Europe, China, and the U.S.
Lourdes Grobet is best-known for her photographs of Mexican wrestlers (Lucha Libre). She has published over 11,000 photographs of the sport involving many costumes and masks, and that has become an important part of Mexican pop culture. Influenced by the Polish sculptor Mathias Goeritz and Mexican master of mural arts Gilberto Aceves Navarro, she has participated in more than 100 solo and group exhibitions in Mexico, Europe, China, and the U.S. Grobet recently published a 350-page book on Lucha Libre, the result of her 30 years of work, in which photography has infiltrated the world of wrestling.
Eniac Martinez has had 52 solo exhibitions and been part of over 55 collective exhibitions. His most recent show at the Arizona Art Museum, Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, a photographic essay that captures the present condition of The Camino Real, an old trading route between the north and south, its inevitable transformation, and those elements that have significance to its contemporary inhabitants. Martinez has received distinguished awards such as first prize at the V Biennial of Photography of the National Institute of Fine Arts in Mexico and from the Mother Jones International Foundation for Documentary Photography; and a Fulbright Scholarship for his photographic work Mixtecos/Norte-Sur.
Photographic historian Sandra Phillips was appointed curator of photography at SFMOMA in 1987, and promoted to senior curator of photography in 1999, a position she currently holds. Throughout her career, she has combined curatorial activities with teaching, lecturing, and publishing. At Beyond Boundaries, Phillips’ lecture, “Heading South: American Photographers and the Meaning of Mexico,” will examine the importance of Mexico as a place to make photographs by the artists Paul Strand, Edward Weston and Tina Modotti, and explore the legacy of Mexico in American photographers who followed them.
An exhibition on photography in Mexico, in conjunction with Beyond Boundaries, will be on view February 10-13 at the Lynn Krywick Gibbons Gallery at the Cantor Arts Center, featuring select work by Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Tina Modotti, Emmy Lou Packard, and Edward Weston from the museum’s collection. Reception will be on February 12, 5-6 PM, at the Cantor Arts Center.
Beyond Boundaries is sponsored by the Stanford Institute for Creativity and the Arts.
