BLANCA BERLÍN RECLAIMS THE FIGURE OF ÁLVAREZ BRAVO
By Álvaro de Benito
Ninety-five years have passed since the iconic exhibition at New York’s Julien Levy Gallery dedicated to Manuel Álvarez Bravo (Mexico City, Mexico, 1902 – ibid., 2002), which brought the Mexican photographer’s work into the spotlight. Now, his oeuvre is once again the subject of study in Spain, where it had not been shown for more than a decade, through the exhibition organized by the Blanca Berlín Gallery in Madrid.
Álvarez Bravo is regarded as one of the pioneers and most outstanding authors of early modern photography worldwide, as well as one of the greatest and most significant representatives of the Latin American scene of the past century. Although critics have sometimes positioned him as a cornerstone of Surrealism—a movement from which the photographer consistently distanced himself—his lens focused on a much more humanist approach and a deep exploration of detail, while also maintaining continuous experimentation with abstraction, landscape, and architecture.
The traces and layers of poetry, irony, and visual associations present throughout his body of work point to the unmistakable imprint of his personal qualities. Alongside them flow his avant-garde influences, with Cubism and the names of Eugène Atget and Picasso as key references.
Manuel Álvarez Bravo can be seen through November 8 at Blanca Berlín Gallery, Limón 28, Madrid (Spain).
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