PhotoEspaña 2010 Different Venues
Madrid, Cuenca, Lisbon
Once again, and for the thirteenth consecutive year, Madrid has been the epicenter of the development of a new edition of the Festival of Photography and Visual Arts, PhotoEspaña 2010. On this occasion, the Spanish capital was accompanied by the neighboring city of Cuenca, as well as by Lisbon, in presenting the past and recent work of 372 artists from 41 countries dis- tributed in approximately seventy exhibitions. The list of pho- tographers continued to be exceptionally attractive, and the exhibit included works by masters and veterans such as Lászlo Moholy-Nagy or the Swiss Roman Signer, alongside those by the latest talents in the field of photography. Latin America was rep- resented in this edition by numerous names, both in the festival ́s exhibition activities and in the recognition of Ibero-American photography through some of the event’s initiatives and awards. Madrid’s Círculo de Bellas Artes hosted Óscar Muñoz’s (Popayán, Colombia, 1951) exhibition Volverse aire, which featured several of the works in which he has been clearly addressing a search in the relationships between time and reality, as well as with dura- bility. With an amazing command of different visual techniques, ranging from installation through video to photography, Muñoz has become one of the great names in Latin America in terms of confronting changing circumstances and temporality. Adriana Lestido (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1955) landed in Casa de América with an exhibition of some of her most celebrated series, such as Madres e hijas (Mothers and Daughters) or Mujeres presas (Women in Prison). From her photographic essays produced in the 1980s, in which she addressed the social aspects of relationships associated to motherhood, Lestido proposed an itinerary that delved into emotions, intimacy and solitude in this fundamental process reflecting a very important part of a woman’a identity, in a way which was much more thoughtful and transcendent than the one reflected by documentary film we are shown as formal element.
Also within the official section, which included the participation of the two aforementioned exhibits, visitors came across Alejandra Laviada’s (Mexico City, 1980) show at El Águila Exhibition Hall. As the winner of the Descubrimientos (Discoveries) Award in the 2009 edition, this young Mexican artist earned the right to present her most recent projects at the festival. For each of them she chose a space which was about to be torn down and placed in it, as in the case of her series Photo Sculptures, poetic sculptures which would be immortalized through photography. In Laviada’s works narratives of specific moments, as well as an exploration of the relationship between different artistic disciplines are suggested. The group show enti- tled Encubrimientos (Concealments), held at the Cervantes Institute in Madrid, featured works corresponding to the portfolios reviewed in Discoveries PHE in 2009, among which María Teresa Ponce’s (Quito, Ecuador, 1974) work Oleoducto stood out. In Cuenca’s Antonio Saura Foundation, Gerardo Suter (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1957) participated in the special OpenPhoto sec- tion with a proposal in which he presented his relationship with Mexican symbolism through the intrinsic quality in the photographed elements, situated in or forming part of Mexican cities, whether Pre-Columbian or modern and cosmopolitan. Particularly noteworthy outside the official section and included in the Latin American participation was Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s (Mexico, City, 1967) proposal, Vigilancias materializadas, at Max Estrella. This proposal, which revolved around the axis of surveil- lance and its digitalization, featured five installations, each of which took on a life of its own in order to respond to the public’s interactions, and irony was used to create a feeling of complicity between the work and the audience.
Besides the fact that the exhibitions were extremely well received, Latin American photography also had reasons to celebrate with the granting of the PhotoEspaña 2010 Award to the Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide (Mexico City, 1942), whose contribution to the values of contemporary photography was acknowledged by the jury.
