Hernán Díaz
Museo de Arte Moderno, Bogota
A selection of 150 photographs that include por- traits and documentary photography condenses half a century of artistic production by photographer Hernán Díaz (1929 – 2009).
Hedonistic by nature, Díaz highlighted the beauty of the personages of Colombia’s political and cultural society. Among those who exerted an influence on his work are his contemporaries Richard Avedon and Duane Michals, who produced theirs in a parallel way in other latitudes, an influence that is visible in the whole of his production. Aware of the essence of the photographer’s work, he aligned with the current of those who sought the precise instant, which developed in a parallel way with modern art and its leading exponent, Henri Cartier-Bresson. His relationship with Modernism in Colombia led him to produce, in 1963 and jointly with the Argentine art critic Marta Traba, the book entitled Seis artistas contemporáneos colombianos: Obregón, Ramírez Villamizar, Botero, Grau, Wiedemann, Negret, which clearly associates him with the “modern art” movement created by this group of artists in the mid-1940s.
On the other hand, his interest, from the beginning of his career, in documentary photography focused on the Colombian Caribbean, mainly Cartagena and San Andrés, led him to recreate a society that was cheerful despite the slackness of the his- torical constructions with which they coexist, which positions him as a member of the group of Colombian documentary makers that includes Nereo López, Manuel H. Rodríguez or their predecessor, Leo Matíz.
