2023-06-06 17:38:31
MAPFRE Foundation has presented today, June 6, the exhibitions Tina Modotti y The Catalonia of Jules Ainaud (1871-1872), that can be visited until September 3, at the KBr photography center, located at Avenida Litoral, 30, in Barcelona.
Tina Modotti
The life of Tina Modotti was marked by some of the most important historical events of the 1920s and 1930s. His nomadic life and his hectic political militancy caused Modotti to suddenly leave many of the countries in which he lived, which, as the exhibition curator points out, Isabel Tejeda “decontextualizes and messes up her production, making it impossible to accurately date many of her images”, although it can be said that almost all of her photographic work was produced between 1923 and 1930.
During these Mexican years and after his apprenticeship with Westonthe artist evolved from the perfection of formalism to a different and personal perspective conditioned by her way of seeing life, as an emigrant, a woman and a political activist, in which her attraction to the human being and social injustices stands out.
It then portrays the precarious conditions of the workers, the inequalities and the misery of urban areas. It also focuses on women and their role within the community, also on the forms and symbols of the emancipation of the working class. In her eagerness to awaken consciences, Modotti made images that denounce injustices and honor the dispossessed, some of them with a propaganda purpose that are intended for printing in publications and magazines.
The exhibition presented by Fundación MAPFRE is made up of around 240 photographsmostly period copies, which are grouped into four sections: Early Years: From Udine to Los Angeles, Mexico on the Other Side of the Camera, Photography and Political Commitment, and The Passage to Political Action: Spain at War.
In addition to emphasizing his relationship with Spain, the exhibition reconstructs the figure of Modotti, both in his role as artist/photographer and in that of revolutionary / anti-fascist militant. In addition, an extensive amount of documentary material and one of the films that Modotti starred in Hollywood is presented. The tour is completed with works by photographers close to him, such as Edward Weston.
The Catalonia of Jules Ainaud (1871-1872)
This exhibition, which continues the line of exhibition programming initiated by Fundación MAPFRE with the desire to deepen knowledge of archives and photographic collections, presents the photographic work that Jules Ainaud made during his trip through Catalonia between 1871 and 1872. The exhibition thus restores his legitimate authorship and makes the work of this photographer known.
It has been more than one hundred and fifty years since the set of photographs that Jules Ainaud took in Catalonia commissioned by the Laurent house, could be seen, for the first and only time to date, at the Barcelona Athenaeum. Like the photographs of the Levante area marketed by that firm, this interesting set of images was considered the work of the artist himself for a long time. John Lawrence. “Today (…) with the documentary evidence on the table, it can be affirmed that Jules Ainaud was the actual author of those shots taken in this area that the J. Laurent house marketed in the catalogs of 1872 and 1879” points out the curator of the sample, Yep Martí Baiget.
At the company J.Lawrence for which Ainaud worked was founded in Madrid in 1856 by the Frenchman Jean Laurent, and represents the main example in Spain of the appearance and development, since the mid-nineteenth century, of companies designed to satisfy the increasingly intense demand for photographic images. , of private portraits, but also of reproductions of works of art, landscapes and views of cities and monuments.
The exhibition presents one hundred vintage prints on albumen paper from wet collodion glass negatives. In addition, gather fourteen stereoscopic views and thirteen reproductions of the negatives on glass plates of these views that allow us to appreciate the richness of image detail in comparison with works on paper. All these photographs were included in the catalogs that Laurent’s company used for its marketing between 1872 and 1879. The tour is completed with a oil portrait de Ainaud, the only one that survives, documentation and four letters that talk about the trip that the author made through Catalonia in the years 1871 and 1872.
PARALLEL ACTIVITIES TO THE EXHIBITIONS
CONFERENCES
June 7 at 7:00 p.m.
Jules Ainaud, “a photographer who admires beauty”, Jep Martí Baiget
Face-to-face and online
More information: https://kbr.fundacionmapfre.org/media/2023/05/KBr_Invitad@s_JA_cast.pdf
June 13 at 7:00 p.m.
Tina Modotti, by Isabel Tejeda
Face-to-face and online
More information:
https://kbr.fundacionmapfre.org/media/2023/06/kbr-invitados-tina-modotti-es.pdf
CINEMA-CONCERT
June 16 at 7:00 p.m.
The Tiger’s Coat, Catherine Vincent
A proposal of live music and cinema around the exhibition Tina Modotti. The Tiger’s Coat (1920) is a silent film by American director Roy Clements, in which Modotti plays the lead role alongside Lawson Butt. The French duo Catherine Vincent will put live music to this film which, under her intervention, acquires a touch of musical comedy.
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