Beyond Origins, Across Borders: Modernist Photography in Mexico 

Mexico City of the 1920s and ‘30s was a vibrant cosmopolitan artistic center, drawing modernists from all over the world, including photographers from the United States. Histories of Mexican modernist photography often paradoxically begin with the Californian Edward Weston and Italian-born Tina Modotti, and the photographs they made in 1920s Mexico. Scholars assert these artists’ influence on Manuel Álvarez Bravo, who became Mexico’s pre-eminent photographer of the twentieth century. In turn, examples of Álvarez Bravo’s surrealist work circulated through exhibitions and journals, both at home and across borders, to influence another generation of artists. Rather than insist on photographic firsts and reify lineage, this talk considers the conditions that made Mexican audiences receptive to the modernist photographic aesthetic in the first place. It also examines the cultural revolution that inspired new photographic practices to develop within Mexico. In so doing, speaker Monica Bravo demonstrates the intermedial construction of Mexico’s revolution in modernist photography, beyond origins and across borders. The lecture will be followed by a book signing of, “Greater American Camera: Making Modernism in Mexico,” which will be available for purchase in the AAM Store.

Friday, August 28th, 2026 at 6:00PM
FREE