Unlimited and unattainable photography

              ünlimited and unattainable
photography
NELSON HERRERA YSLA
BEGINNINGS
To fíx boundaries and limits isn't an easy task other than
for cartographers, land-surveyors or certain mathematicians
who think they find the fínite bounds of the universa in
which they work and so feel authorized to say, up to this
point, or a bit furtlier picase, if conditions permit. For cri-ticism
it's much more difficult. However, it's worth running
the risks of interpreting a phenomenom at continental level
though we oniy make half of the journey.
Contemporary latin american photography is vast as it has
never been before, if we see it as gradually transgressing its
traditional frontiers, the development that characterizes its
creativity, and its participation in the confluences and borro-wings
that mark contemporary culture, and that many atta-ched
the labe! of post-modernism to, given the emphasis with
which they extended the term to cover almost all áreas of
life.
"Contemporary latin american photography" is at the same
time an ambiguous and slippery term; which Latin America
are we talking about?, That which is northernmost spread
among a group of small agricultural nations still haunted by
the ghost of their indian population drama? Or that which is
to the south, more european, industrial and cold? Or are they
referring to these and to that portuguese-speaking giant where
ethnocultural groups, economic worlds and different historical
times share life without the desired harmony? And then,
which photography, the one that hardly fínds space in
museums and galleries, put aside as "minor art", lacking the
adequate study and analysis? That which documents and pro­vides
testimony? That which interprets or experiments? Or the
one that is used to publicize the "lie of underdevelopment"
in beautiful newspaper or magazine pages, and in urban publi-city
screens?
Latin America today faces numerous challenges, and among
them, of course, its Culture; that is to say, its "refined",
"popular", "spontaneous", "academic" expressions, for reality
moves in many directions, and not in the intended ones of
the "global village" or of a "global culture". Thus, presently,
we recognize the primacy of the locus, the genius loci, and
the singularities that survived with hardship, dimmed, concea-led
(and repressed, why not?), during too long a time under
the banner of the universal.
A great part of the continent experiences processes of trans-formation
towards a stabilization of its shaky structures; some
of the underlying historical dangers subside, as well as rival-ries,
and certain states head towards consolidation of common
markets in an effort known as integration, with the purpose
of overhauling their scanty economies viz-á-viz the new
scheme of a "new International financial order", that we all
know is the same oíd one.
All of these movements have their positive aspects as they
mobilize social forces, bring to the discussion table crucial
everyday issues and leave us in a better position when it
comes to analysing rationally the destiny that we are all crea-ting,
although below, the dramatic problems, deep, intense
and latent keep flowing in insoluble stalemate. As García Már­quez
said ten years ago, Latin American is getting ready to
enter the twenty-fírst century without having passed through
the twentieth.
The programmes of neoliberal "modernization" coUide with
the repressed anguish of millions trapped in feudal allegiance,
ideológica! rhetoric, mimesis, state corruption and desperate
copies of models alien to the particular realities of the con­tinent.
However, and luckily, in the midst of this hurricane
of commercial passions, political elections that announce
"changes" that lead to glorious continuity (as Lampedusa des-cribed
in his novel // Gatopardó), Latin America produces
strong and solid artistic expressions capable of arousing the
attention of its natural audience and of other parts too wi­thout
a need for very explicit translation.
Taking into account the analysis of the causes and the ori-gins
of this rich, healthy symbological production, we can at
least proclaim that we have known how to challenge the tra­ditional
inefficiency that characterizes our governments and
TW
• « • I tMlií
wm smmm
Luz Elena Castro (Colombia). Marzo, 1992.
institutions in the management of public property, and that
really the antiquatedness of our technologies or the underes-timation
or contempt from that other part of the West hasn't
bothered us, and that we are moving towards creating our
new contemporary culture with a new american consciouness,
that is rooted in our deep identity.
In Latin America the "logical" correspondences between
material basics and superstructure weren't established. That
resulted in the divorce of body and mind. We were a comedy
of errors and misunderstandings, the moment Cristopher
Columbus set foot on American soil five hundred years ago.
Before that historical moment there existed in these parts
a certain spiritual coherence, certain cultural homogeneity des­pite
the antagonisms that were starting to tear us apart. The
arrival of the europeans perturbed everything: production rela-tions,
social and family organization, properties, laws, beliefs,
and even the language of the colonists experienced transfor-mations
in its struggle to adapt itself to the never imagined
New World.
Since then we've never been the same. But we don't know
exactly who. We've been looking for that definition for quite
some time, and perhaps it is what best identifies us, that is,
the permanent search for our identity.
We know all the ingredients that go into making the broth
(ajaico, puchero, soup, as it is called in different countries)
but we don't agree on a common ñame. Perhaps the most
practical thing is to cali it hybrid, hybridity (following the
ideas of Garda Canclini), in order to characterize that which
is essential to so many local and regional cultures, and which
daily receive new elements from the Oíd Continent, of the
"fascinating" big neighbour of the north and even from the
Far East in quite decent doses.
We possess that extraordinary ability to assimilate whatever
"God has created", as we say in Cuba; to assimilate it whole,
devour it, and after a while deform it, corrupt it, recontex-tualize
it at will, to the image of our liking. However precise
new "producís" may arrive, here we process them into some-thing
else, and we experience changes ourselves somehow. We
reconstitute ourselves internally and externally as if nothing
had happened, without flinching a muscle.
The visual arts proved it during the controversial 80's, pro-ducing
attitudes that many considered new while we had felt
them for quite a time without even bothering to ñame them.
In our own way we mixed religious and patriotic icons,
symbols of popular tradition and of orthodox academicism,
images of family Ufe and of the mass media. We have been
and are irreverent towards national myths and rites through
irony, pastiche and sarcasm. Without theoretical formulations
or critical basis we mix disciplines of all kinds, insisting on
the magical components of our beliefs and thoughts, long
before that reaction towards technology, science, its imperso­nal
standardization, and that inability to resolve the true pro-
ATLANTIC^A
blems of the human beíng ever got going in that other, wes-tern
half of Europe.
If we weren't able to defíne the phenomenom adequately
that was a problem of art crítícism. What seemed surreaUst
to André Bretón in the 30's became a conunonplace that cata-gorízed
the artistic and literary creation of the continent, as
well as any gesture, sign or symboI of our social and indivi­dual
behaviour. Years later carne the "magic realism" fad,
and so on, until we fortunately abandoned such expressions
that survived thanks to the prestige of their authors more
than to any content of reality or truth they held.
The coihplexity that some of our cultural expressions pos-sessed
when they mixed, fused and were juxtaposed among
themselves and other cultures, confused quite a few investi-gators
and crítics that couldn't immediately fínd equivalents
on their side of the ocean.
Latin America is mote complex than we imagine: its rich
articulation of epochs ai^d diíTerent contexts make it a recep-tive
land for an art that scoms classiflcation and limit. It's
more an art of rupture, of permanent transgression, of sub-versive
nature, provocative, inasmuch as it is related to the
social, and has deep historícal roots.
Such are the coordinates that defíne the location of con-temporary
latin american photography, whose fírst decades at
the start of the century laid the foundations for future de
velopment and projection, in the works of Agustín Casasola,
Martín Chambí, Abraham Guillen, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, up
to Horacio Coppola, the Forum group, José Tabío, Constan­tino
Arias, Claudia Andújar, round the 50's. They produced
work that not only "mirrored" the object but also the opi­nión
of who photographed it (to paraphrase Fierre Francas-tel).
Some of these enlightened developments were stimulated
and explored by Paolo Gasla Gasparini, Miguel Río Branco,
Martín López Reyes, Graciela Iturbide, Pedro Meyer, Sebas­tián
Delgado, Sandra Eleta, Raúl Corrales, Hernán Díaz,
incorporating greater amounts of subjectivity into the fíeld of
interpretation and wealth of meaníngs.
Latin american photography has taken the pulse, from very
varied personal angles, of the diverse cultures and societies
that compose this national mosaíc. While politicians and mer-chants
hastened to set up rites and means of control neces-sary
for eíTecting their modernizing plans, the photographers
searched the Unes of those faces hidden by economic lust and
voracity and brought into the light (out of the dark chamber
of human dramas), another America that we immediately
understood as being our own for it rcinterpreted the past, it
revealed the artífices of the present, and led us to question
the future.
The photographic artists crusaded for the interpretation of
America, for the dignification of its nature and populations
(deníed them in offícial histories and in real life), as indeed
painters, sculptors, engravers also did at diíTerent times ever
since the 20's. Only that for them the glamorous recognition
of museums and galleríes never carne, ñor did they enjoy the
favourable reviews of crítics who were devoted to extoUing
the virtues of unique, unrepeatable works of fine arts.
They wcnt about their business with modesty, conscious of
a discipline that connected them with anthropology, ethno-logy,
social psychology, when these hadn't even been "disco-vered"
by the art world.
Modern latin american photography developed with the
search for a visual consciousness (in the words of Edmundo
Desnoes), with the elaboration of latin american photographic
iconography, that would contribute to embodying in one sin­gle
specifíc object and subject, the identity of whole nations
and peoples, not worrying about the abuses of this term
during the decade of the 60's and that through the agency of
mechanisms of repetition and superfíciality became confused
with indian and afrícan traditions or with the most vulgar
and commercial aspects of popular art expressions.
Alien, and against, the stereotyped image of the "latin ame­rican",
the best photography of the continent produced the
truth beyond the multitude of lies fabricated by the tourist
agencies, political campaigns and televisión.
Having become a vital idiom in the diversity of our debate,
photography looks out for what we don't perccive with our
eyes, what our reason intuits, what our emotions reveal. Its
defect is excess, that uncontrolled ímpetus of all-embra-cingness,
that proposes the most generous and the most gene­ral
visions possible of all that Latín America is, which gene-rates
evident stereotypes, rhetoric and a certain repetition of
its basic themes, in whose shadow parasitic entíties team crea-ting
a debased image of the tnie complexity of the intercul­tural
problems we have.
If during a given historical moment it was the ideal instru-ment
for documenting defínite events (remembcr the images
of the Mexican Revolution in the 20's and the Cuban in the
60's), today the variety of possibilities offered in terms of
materials, forras, concepts, ideas, that many believed to be
exclusive territory of certain image arts, gives rise to interest
and concern.
From "enlightenment" we go on to critical reflection.
We've changad focus, obviously, but in order to focus better
on other component elements of the great sign and symbol
system of our cultures, and to highlight what for a long time
remained diffuse, blurry, dark.
The gradual increase of subjectivity in latin american pho­tography
has served to enrich the spectator's perception and
reevaluate the rol of art, without undermining the objectivity
of its results. The concept of manipulation, progressively more
widespread, increases the levéis of image signifícation, rende-ring
it complex, liberating the photographer from prejudices
that tíed him to a dogmatic liason with "realism", the snap
shot, the capturing of the real.
This evolution's most recent chapter can be seen in what
is denominated as digital photography, capable of questioning
the traditional concept of the dark room, for images can be
built in plain daylight, and creative techniques modified. With
technology and certain expressive techniques it's possible to
alter sceneríes, backgrounds, figures, and even make them dis-appear,
to modify their Ught and colour. Technology innova-tes
photography with incredible forcé, to the extent that some
are already venturing to say that we are entering a post-photograptüc
universe (Rubén Femandes Júnior); in this sense
it becomes important to follow closely the work of a group
of brazilian photographers that have set off on an exploratory
tríp of these new lands.
The "use" of photographic images (by creators that either
produce them or use them), becomes important as part of a
search for special inversión efíects, such as modern art has
A""A"^"<^A ®
Francisco Mata (México). 1989.
accustomed us to, closer to televisión and cinematic lan-guage.
These recent tendencies break the myth of the individual,
exclusive author and of photography as a "double" of reality
(according to the cuban critic Juan A. Molina), which con-fronts
the spectator with new problems that he still isn't pre-pared
for, presumably due to his well-worn familiarity with
the "informative" possibilities of photography.
To the wealth of points of view and approaches in vogue
should correspond a critical abundancy that analyses the deve-lopment
of those tendencies that single out Latin America as
a principal example, taking into account the various aesthetic
and symboHc issues in operation and the different sectors of
a public it addresses. Even though when such creative events
don't have the same intensity in all countries it isn't easy
always for the critic to come into contact with them;
exchange and debate become more necessary in any Interna­tional
forum, to control the practice of encounters and con-versations
since they are valuable Instruments of integration
and clarification. Running the risk of wanting to cover too
much ground (and to specialize too little), I want to underline
some of latin american photography's most creative aspects,
that we have shown in successive Biennials in La Habana,
through events and in speciaHzed exhibitions in and outside
of the island, with the purpose of determining limits and
extents, as well as contributing to the spread of Information
on these works.
Thus I want to avoid what Erika Billeter once declared in
her introduction to the catalogue of the Fotografía Iberoame­ricana
show (1982, Madrid): "We know very Uttle about latin
american photography... At International level only one pho-tographer
is known: Manuel Alvarez Bravo...".
NATURE AS DRAMATIC SCENERY
Here we can observe the relationship between man and
nature, that at times appears difficult and mysterious, and at
others, dramatic and alienating. A photography of accusation
and of deep humanism for those "lost" men and women in
the vast and exuberant natural geography, as if they inhabited
another time, another space, another existence. Sebastián Sal­gado
represents the summit of this critical consciousness, as
he expresses human drama with fertile artistry, sometimes
cióse to sculpture, painting and choreography. It is enough
to mention an essay on Sierra Pelada, Brasil and all those
other images of different andean countries, like Guatemala,
Colombia, México. Photography as an elegy of something we
know but that we don't concéntrate on: Uves sacrificed before
our very eyes (though sometimes secret), and that statistics
mould into visible reahty and news.
Less dramatic, but just as enlightening, are the images of
Cristina Fraire (Argentina), of residual populations along the
frontier with Chile, at the foot of the Andean Ridge, or those
of Roberto R. Fantozzi and Jorge Deustua (Perú), with the
ATLANTICA
bitter Outlook of the peasants that still haven't been díspos-sessed,
or those of Sabino Pinto (Bolivia), revealing the iso-lation
of vast indian sectors in their natural terrain, tied to
the earth. Photos that intend to recover the human condition
of people that progress and modernization has left behínd.
At no point are we considering the mythification of the
non recognition of these Uves steeped in obüvion, but the tes-timony
of the marginality that vast social sectors still not inte-grated
in any national programme suffer. They aren't snap
shots, ñor unique, exceptional moments, in fact, quite the
opposite: it's daily Ufe, common drudgery, exhaustion, with
no escaping, treading down dark paths and ways, that
become immeasurable. The images of an american "dream"
turned, perhaps many centuries ago, into a nightmare.
THE COLONISrS SPACE
Represented by the big cities, and also by smaller ones, the
latin american habitat becomes asphixiating, inhospitable, into-lerant.
Tense and aggressive, distanced from the utopy of
collective space, of the forum for encounter and exchange, the
urban scenery refracts, more than any other, the contempo-rary
social contradictions where the unemployed, the pólice,
the army, the civil servants, politicians, and students have pro-minent
place, those that constantly reconstitute the hellish cir-cle
of marginality, and where the signs and symbols of the
fínancial institutions, the mechanisms of power, commercíal
and political propaganda and the infinite number of mass cul­ture
components and their disqualifíed archítecture merge.
That's the área that Paolo Gasparini has homed in on
since the early 60's (the photographs of Para verte mejor
América Latina, published in book form with text by Des-noes),
up to the recent Retromuado, that illustrates the tran-sition
from a corrosive analysis of the socio-poUtical context
of the continent and an ironic visión of the fragmented reality
of the civilized world, with subtle nuances of humour and cul­tural
references of varying orígin. Beyond both perspectives
is the exemplary vocation of fusing the local and the univer­sal,
the specifíc codes of many cultures, without discourse su-ffering
any loss of coherence, organicism and energy.
And the fact is that Gasparini has revealed áreas of our
reality far too sensitive for us to behold indifferently; he has
constantly provoked the spectator, he has shaken him using
the same signs and symbols that the common man uses to
survive daily, he has used his habitual spaces (an anonymous
suburban street, a commcrcial gallery, a pavement, the ómni­bus),
in ímages of violent specuiar action.
That in the arca chosen by Lourdes Grobet (México), to
ponder on the economic dependencies that modernity
brought. A theme also treated by Marcelo Isamialde (Uru­guay),
through a melancholy evocation of Montevideo, recor-ding
what is lost in that city and has become memory,
lament, nostalgia; and Lutz Matschke, capturing the artificia-lity
and the illusory games that flow behind the great shop
Windows of Buenos Aires before the eyes of the unsatisfíed
consummer. From another perspective, Daniel Renault (Bra­sil),
conceives the night Ufe of Sao Paulo as the space of
modem solitude, the place where emptiness and desolation
grow.
With other intentions (ruled by a greater complícity be-tween
artist and theme), Ramón M. Grandal (Cuba), approa-ched
both large and confined áreas of La Habana to interpret
that heady mixture of city and politics, privacy and the State,
ruins and utopia, different to what Mario García Joya (Cuba)
expresses in his work on the coastal village of Caibarién in
the centre of Cuba, where the marked accent of popular
design that is spontaneous in homes and during festivities,
show that baroque character of our urban cultures, transcen-ding
all Umits in the exuberant imagination of a country bent
on celebrating its rites despite all diffículty and privations.
Other photographers of the 80's took heed of Gasparini's
model lessons, sharpening even more the levéis of criticism,
reflection and denouncement. Steps were taken towards defí-ning
an aesthetic of marginaUsm (within the marginality of
the Third World), through the proposals of Paz Errázuriz
(Chile), Isidro Núñez (Venezuela), Cynthia do Nascimento
Brito, Nair, Delñm Martins (Brasil), Alicia D'Amico (Argen­tina)
and an aesthetics of the every day in the work of Mar­tín
López Reyes (Dominican Republic). Miguel Río Branco
(Brasil), Sandra Reus (Puerto Rico), related to that latin ame­rican
urbanism that emphasizes human conflict in the struggle
to fínd one's place in the world, a defínite home, without
guile or indifference hindering the spontaneity of the process.
(We must point out the approach of a group of brazilian pho­tographers,
with intense emotion and solidarity, to the phe-nomenom
of the homeless street children in that vast country,
that also reflects other situations throughout the continent.)
In general, this and the other proposals, particípate in the
poUtical dialogue that runs through our America in the 60's,
when the latin american left decided to adopt a more active
part in the national processes of liberation. Not only photo-graphy
alone, but other expressions on the continent appro-piated
new contents and formulated new poetical tenets. The
photographer's eye grew keener, more sensitive as it enlarged
the scope of its lens despite the threat to profession and
safety, as argentine and chilean photoreporters proved in the
midst of ferocious dictatorships.
Heir to this consciousness is the later work of Becky Mayer
(Colombia), concerning the Neo Nazis and the crude reality
they personify when the gates of efíiciently organized violence
are opened.
Other concerns evolved towards a deeper investigation of
the anthropological and the sociological, as in the cases of
Vida Yovanovich (México), Rolando Córdoba (Cuba), when
inquiring about patients assisted and abandoned in psychiatric
hospitals, and oíd peoples' homes.
EXPLORED MYTHS
Despite an extensive history of mutilations, censorship, silen-cings,
the myths of the original ethnocultural groups of Latin
America have survived up to the present together with those
that were imported with the Cross and the Sword. As basic
as bread and shoes, they stopped being exclusive property of
anthropology, of psychology, of structuralism, to enter fuUy
into the field of art.
The multidiscipUnarian junction favoured a cUmate of
mutual understanding and borrowings given the precariousness
of certain traditional Instruments and information on the road
to extinction. GraduaUy they were turned into painting, sculp-ture,
installations, performance, video cinema, photography,
ceremonies, cosmogonies, in their enthusiasm to fínd new
A l l A ^ I I I :A O
arcas of contact with classless and non-sectorial man. The clo-sed
character of many of these practices opened up in order
to reveal their "secrets" to all those who approached with the
keeness to perfect their knowledge.
The mask, blood, esoteric script, body painting, sacred ani­máis,
ofFerings, magic words, gestures all feature in the work
of Gerardo Suter (México), Mario Cravo Neto, Miguel Río
Branco (Brasil), Luis González Palma (Guatemala). In their
special effects language we can appreciate special theatrícal
lighting eíFects, a reelaboration of pre-colombine imagery, the
centralizing human figure of mythical space, the perfectionist
construction of the media, accompanied by colour manipu-lation
oriented towards creating atmospheres akin to each
atmosphere, provoking the most intímate contact with the
observer.
The aesthetic will behind these photographs fuUy corres-ponds
to the most deep seated pride that arises from the
myths explored, the worshiped Gods, derived from mises-en-scéne
perfectly distanced from banality or exotism.
POPULAR TRADITIONS
Initially, several mexican photographers decided to act, and
united by common interests opened the way to the recogni-tion,
respect and praise due to their beautiful popular tradi-tions.
They had already been abused in stereotyped versions
for publicity and many were endangered by the invasión of
other false, or imported influences. Yet above all, there was
pride in anonymous popular tradition, in that language full
of signs and symbols rooted in the nation's history, at the
manual celebration they expressed, at the polyphonic, choral
tradition they embody and will continué to do. These tradi-tions
generally were related to craft, dress making, rítuals and
festivities, not having entered into contact with the black and
white image until a definite group of photographers decided
to document them, project them, and hang them on those
walls normally reserved for "profesional" art and cuhure.
Some of the members of that group are Vida Yovanovich,
Yolanda Andrade, Flor Garduño, Pedro Valtierra, Lourdes
Almeida, Graciela Iturbide, Matriana Yampolski and others
perhaps more versed in the everyday affairs of their countries
than in matters of the past and their connective elements.
It's the scarch for, in other terms, of a long denied identity,
of a certain mexicanness manifested in certain conducts and
attitudes, spaces, landscapes, outlined in those images of Juan
Rulfo when he set upon "visualizing" the core of his literary
work and part of his cultural reality.
There we find the works of Héctor Méndez Caratíni
(Puerto Rico), and Stefan Columbia (Brasil), as those of
Domingo Batista and Mariano Hernández (Dominican Repu-blic),
Roberto Huarcaya (Perú), Raúl Corrales and María
Eugenia Haya (Cuba), who carried out "deconstructions" of
their traditions and pcoples in order to insist on the deep aes-theticism
and artistry of their popular culture. It didn't intercst
them as a programme, as an aesthetic, ideological platform,
ñor did they blindly search for a cubanness, a brasilianness,
mexicanness, rather they acted from within, from analysis,
seriousness and respect they merited. A photography of the
present, bearing the emblems of the past and claimíng a res-pectable
future whcre they can Uve in harmony with all the
manífestations of the national spirit.
There isn't any demagogy or hidden ideological intentions
in these images; neither are they conceived to sustain political
projects. However, there is much in them that claims new
rights for the portrait, that wants to take it from its habitual
space into the street, recognizing it as the setting for the domi-nant
majorities.
RECENT CONCEPTUAL DEVELOPMENTS
In latin american photography changes are occuring that
tend to diversify even further its panorama. These generally
aim at introducing non-explored elements and to make evi-dent
contextúa! references, quotations intended to say more
within the same space; it's not a question of doíng more with
íess, as a political slogan read during the 70's in Cuba, but
to say more with more, with the help of all or almost all.
Problems connected with memory and time become para-mount,
as well as with the multipUcity of interpretations, plu-risignificance,
and a sort of "narrative" closely linked to alle-gory
and metaphor gains priority.
Rogelio López Marín (Gory), in Cuba, had embarked on
that course at the beginning of the past decade. Other than
producing excellent photographs (comments Juan A. Molina),
he used it to créate a network of interaction and non-interaction
in landscape, in abandoned buildings, in streets of
big cities and in closed rooms, with a significative absence of
the human figure. Through superimposing negatives and illu-minating
them once printed, Gory "fabricates" images distan­ced
from the anecdotal, at moments cióse to painting in its
allegorical dimensión and imbued with conceptualism and its
consequences for us.
This problematization of the photographic act that affected
the young photographers of the continent during the 80's has
secret Unks with literature and the vertiginous production of
video clips, that have become a wide source of inspiration for
artists of very different kinds.
As a way of creating fiction through the mythification of
reality, we can feel the preponderance of time in many of
these images, the mobility of the character-interpreters, the
development of art's rational capacity, which tums perception
into a creative act, participative, beyond any emotional, or
sentimental experience.
We can appreciate this in the work of Raúl Stolkiner and
Alexander Kurotpava (Argentina), especially the first, who
overéame the reality of the "instant", of the place, to sitúate
US in different spacio-temporal coordínales of Buenos Aires
that are linked to his Ufe. Stolkiner proposes a fragmented
reading of the image, more cinematic and televisión directed,
fuU of borgesian paths and rich in intertextualities.
This is the style of the work of Mauricio Rubinstein
(México), Roberto Montoya (Colombia), Alejandro Apóstol
(Venezuela), some of them fashioning allegory more than
others, as they manipúlate with similar intensity and depth
the "photographic detcrminants". The final outcome is the
merging of signifier and signifícance, its fusión in an aesthetic,
formal formula that brings fresh air to the contemporary pho­tographic
scene.
More inclined to the sublimation of interior and exterior
atmospheres related to architecture and objects (that has in
C^ ATI A'^^'i'A
Humberto Rivas memorable antecedents), are Alexandra Níe-dermayer
(Argentina) and Alvaro Zino (Uruguay). For both
of them architecture is the bearer of signs that the photo-grapher
captures with hís chiaroscurp play and in which
objects "act" just as they do in theatre. In every photo the
human beíng is an absence that we feel as constant incitement
of expectations.
Finally, it's important to underline the vcry speciai case of
Rosangela Rennó (Brasil), who builds objects, installations,
sculptures, books, records, albums, with found photos, in the
manner of the objet trouvé, or negatives rejected owing to
wear. Rosangela doesn't practice photography in the usual
way. She's a searcher of "residues" in the lab archives of Río
do Janeiro. She looks for "evidence" in archaelogical fashion:
her "characters" are men and women acting in circumstances
she doesn't know about, therefore they are strangers. Between
them we can't fmd relationships, thus she manipulates back-grounds,
ñgures, she modiñes sceneries in order to apply trans-formations
in accordance with an a priori discourse on soli-tude,
love, oíd age, or throwing at us images of the anony-mous
crowds in whose midst we are all immersed. She res­tores
memory to people, makes them feel joy once more,
those feasts they presided; she resemantizes situations and
functions. Rosangela uses photography in a difTerent dimen­sión,
in comparison with Rogelio López Marín, though with
identical creativity and imagination.
tures; that ísn't so much concerned by an artistic identity as
by the social reality that determines it.
Latín american photography centres again the debate about
identity round the otber, without inferiority complexes or des-pair:
with extreme simplicíty, rummaging in tense áreas, in all
possible directions, distanced from the search for originality
as supreme goal. If the idea of identity was much abused
during many years, leading to weariness, the photographers
have kept it alive and paid a very high price for it. Their ima­ges
stirred up rejection because they mostly exhibited the
"ugly" side of life; there where we find pain, crisis, unrest,
drama and poverty. They didn't gloat over the marvels of the
latín american landscape, but showed how people were tied
to it, they didn't go in for the "typícal" of our customs and
behaviour, they sought íts psychoíogical and social meanings.
They didn't pretend to sweeten what has tasted bitter for five
hundred years. Hedonísm and the banalízatíon of contempo-rary
western culture, set working by the potent and solid
entertaínment industries, have íncreased their influence cuota
in nearly all dependent nations and to achieve this they
impose the dogmatic delíght of image, the enjoyment of aes-thetic
surface beyond all critical capacity. The trend and fas-hions
periodically cast onto the culture scene (from long dis-tances),
attempt to cover the greatest number of categories
possible, as if human and social conílict were to change with
similar intensity and passion, as if the great problems of
humanity were to change every decade.
CONCLUSIONS
The best of latin american photography is outlined in the
different sections here presented, not pretending to have said
the last word about it. Its hetereogeneity is confirmed as part
of the new spirit that invigorates the genre and in the manner
it participates in the recent transformations or of recent latin
american art.
Its history is short, not more than half a century, and we
can't demand as much of it as other oíd disciplines. Despite
its "youth" it is immersed in the crucial issues facing our cul­tures,
our societies, both to document and to reexpress them,
always departing from a certain degree of critical maturity.
It doesn't appear to be fertile ground for neutrality ñor for
indifTerence though its ambiguity casts a shadow of doubt for
many.
In my opinión, the best of this photography is its role in
the processes of change that occur inside our societies from
a new cultural perspective. Its participation produces different
visions of Latin America: mythic, magic, political, in a poly-focal
conception that neither hierarchizes ñor privileges one
over the other. It's the profound need to discover ourselves,
to encounter within obviating foreign mediations.
Quite frankly, the words of E. Billeter in the íntroduction
to the mentioned exhibition still hold true, "the theme of
almost all the photographers is Latin America". The paths
cleared by the founders of the art are still open and await
new interpretations. They aren't exhausted because that isn't
truc of our ctütures or of our people. A continent in perma-nent
unrest can only produce a disquieting photography acti-vely
linked to its contexts.
A photography that concentrates on the aesthetic and the
formal and simultaneously on the plural contents of our cul-
That's what the photographers rebelled against. They paid
no attention to the swan songs of cosmopoUtanism and the
avant-gardism that can delight and seduce so successfully, and
they continued working like moles, burrowing through the
depths of America.
Latin american photographers created what can be defined
as an art appropiate to its place of birth, to the culture from
which it emerges, to the reality where it is set; a photography
in time with us (as Cristian Fernández Cox, the distinguished
chilean architect likes to sat about latin american architec­ture).
But as we are not always the same people, photography
registers those movements and internal changes of each one
of our countries. One of such movements that gains strength
day by day is the phenomenom of migration, that causes
today serious conflicts in the so-called First World. In Latin
America this problem becomes especially intense along the
mexícan-northamerican frontier, in the cuban, dominican and
haitian situations. The economic origín of this phenomenom
generates new social and individual situations, provokes end-less
questions, coins new variants of intercultural relations,
carries out modiñcations in the midst of our local cultures.
Several photographers of the continent have embraced this
drama. Tradition, inheritance, irresistible vocation? What does
it matter. The truth is that latin american photography keeps
beating at the very heart of its spiritual and cultural geo-graphy.
It doesn't matter if it upholds a particular trend, and
whether this is "mainstream" or not and if it satisfies the
"other's" expectations. For latin american culture this wealth
of images is vital, this visión of intense contemporariness.
This gives US the dimensión of its renewed discourse, of
how unlimited its frontiers are, of how unattainable its pur-poses
remain.
La Habana, june 1993.
A I I - A N I K A O