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This article was downloaded by: [University of Ulster Library] On: 13 November 2014, At: 09:04 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Third Text Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ctte20 Tina Modotti and Muralism: Notes on a Common Language Maricela González Cruz Manjarrez Published online: 15 Jul 2014. To cite this article: Maricela González Cruz Manjarrez (2014) Tina Modotti and Muralism: Notes on a Common Language, Third Text, 28:3, 271-281, DOI: 10.1080/09528822.2014.913348 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09528822.2014.913348 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

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Page 1: Tina Modotti and Muralism: Notes on a Common Language

This article was downloaded by: [University of Ulster Library]On: 13 November 2014, At: 09:04Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office:Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Third TextPublication details, including instructions for authors and subscriptioninformation:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ctte20

Tina Modotti and Muralism: Notes on aCommon LanguageMaricela González Cruz ManjarrezPublished online: 15 Jul 2014.

To cite this article: Maricela González Cruz Manjarrez (2014) Tina Modotti and Muralism: Notes on a CommonLanguage, Third Text, 28:3, 271-281, DOI: 10.1080/09528822.2014.913348

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09528822.2014.913348

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”)contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and ourlicensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, orsuitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publicationare the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor &Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independentlyverified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for anylosses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilitieswhatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to orarising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantialor systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, ordistribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and usecan be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Page 2: Tina Modotti and Muralism: Notes on a Common Language

Tina Modotti and Muralism:Notes on a Common Language

Maricela Gonzalez Cruz Manjarrez

Today Tina Modotti is a popular figure, whose photographs arevalued at unexpected prices and have become a cultural referencefor a variety of social groups and cultural institutions, includingartists, feminists, photographers, scholars of photography andaesthetics, groups on the Left, and universities. Long before this inter-est, she was the subject of consideration by historians such as XavierMoyssen. In his 1975 article ‘A Collection of Photographs by TinaModotti and Jose Marıa Lupercio’, Moyssen focused on the TinaModotti photographic collection of the Institute of Aesthetic Studies(Instituto de Investigaciones Esteticas, IIE) at the National Auton-omous University of Mexico (Universidad Nacional Autonoma deMexico, UNAM).1

Since the time of Moyssen’s article, Modotti has become exactly whatVittorio Vidali, her companion, feared: a stereotype and an object ofconsumption. She has become more recognized, and yet she is not prop-erly known. Like Frida Kahlo or Che Guevara, she is an ambiguoussymbol. She is often valued from a feminist perspective that associatesher with women such as Nahui Ollin, Antonieta Rivas Mercado, LupeMarın, Concha Michel, or Marıa Izquierdo, an association that empha-sizes her personality and life while diminishing the importance of herartwork. If the different facets of this photographer are to acquiremeaning, we have to consider her career comprehensively, taking intoaccount, for example, her artistic and emotional bond with the famousAmerican photographer Edward Weston, the independent stance shetook with regard to social rules and morals, the quality of her photo-graphic work and its significance to art photography in Mexico duringthe 1930s, her proximity to the Mexican muralist movement, as well asher firm communist convictions and her solidarity work in the SpanishCivil War.2

# 2014 Third Text

1. See Xavier Moyssen, ‘Unacoleccion de fotografıas deTina Modotti y Jose MarıaLupercio’, Anales delInstituto de InvestigacionesEsteticas, vol 11, no 44,1975. This collectionconsists of 115 photographsprinted by Tina Modotti andincludes images of Rivera’smurals, such as those at theMinistry of Education andChapingo, as well as five ofOrozco’s murals at SanIldefonso, among whichthere is a self-portrait ofOrozco. The photographswere taken by Tina Modottibetween 1927 and 1930. Formore information, seeMaricela Gonzalez, TinaModotti y los muralistasmexicanos (Tina Modottiand the Mexican Muralists),Photographic ArchiveCollections series no 1,UNAM-Institute ofAesthetic Studies (IIE),Mexico City, 1999.

2. One of the mostcomprehensive studies toexamine these aspects ofModotti is MargaretHooks’s Tina Modotti,Photographer andRevolutionary,HarperCollins, Pandora,London, 1993. Furthermore,

Third Text, 2014

Vol. 28, No. 3, 271–281, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09528822.2014.913348

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The process of change in the photographic work of Modotticoincides with her absorption of Mexican culture. The style developedby Edward Weston of a direct photography, formally expressive, andfree of details and anecdotes, influenced Modotti to begin with, but asher political posture became more defined, so her work was trans-formed. Without neglecting the formal aspect of the image, shebrings to it a social approach to photography; she connected withthe muralists and also reproduced her works in El Machete, a publi-cation created by the Union of Technical Workers, Painters andSculptors (Sindicato de Obreros Tecnicos, Pintores y Escultores,SOTPE) in 1924.3 A clear example of the new orientation of herwork was displayed in the exhibition at the National Library in1929.4

Modotti established various types of relationships with the muralists;in the case of Jose Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera and MaximoPacheco she used her photographs to enable the diffusion of images oftheir murals, while she made personal connections with paintersincluding Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros and Miguel Covarrubias;with others, such as Xavier Guerrero, she developed intimaterelationships.5

Modotti shared more with the muralists than work connections oremotional bonds; they had in common similar attitudes towardsMexican life and perceptions of the reality of the 1920s. There was, more-over, a common artistic and cultural purpose that brought together theMexican and Soviet revolutions, the avant-garde and nationalism.

Tina Modotti in her exhibition at the University National Library, 1929, photo taken fromMargaret Hooks, Tina Modotti, Photographer and Revolutionary, Pandora, London, 1933,

p 193

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the author conductsexcellent iconographicresearch.

3. This publication includedprints and photographs andwas in a large format thatcould be plastered to walls.In 1929 El Machete wasceded to the MexicanCommunist Party, its formatwas changed and it becameless visually appealing.

4. The exhibition wasorganized by BaltasarDromundo. Concha Michelsang revolutionary songsduring the opening.Dromundo and Siqueirosspoke at the closing. Thisexhibition was re-created inthe Centro de la Imagenbased on reserach conductedby Elisa Lozano and JesusSotelo. See the catalogueedited by Elisa Lozano andJesus Sotelo, Tina Modotti:una nueva mirada, 1929(Tina Modotti: A NewVision, 1929) CNC/Centrode la Imagen, Mexico City,2000.

5. The first serious study thatdeals with Modotti’srelationship with themuralists is the 1995 thesisby Mariana Figarella,Edward Weston y TinaModotti en Mexico: Suinsercion dentro de lasestrategias esteticas del artepostrevolucionario, writtenfor a Masters in Art Historyat the Department ofPhilosophy and Letters atUNAM. See also Figarella’sbook of the same title,UNAM, Mexico City, 2002.

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Modotti and the muralists share themes that exalt socialism and demon-strate the conflict between social classes; they make constant reference tolabour and the glorification of workers – whether as labourers, artisansor farm workers – as well as to productivity and social leaders. Thereare multiple variations on this theme through representations of urbanworkers, rural labourers, children, political meetings, popular demon-strations, the hands of workers, townspeople; and through the use ofsymbolic objects such as corn cobs, the scythe, holsters, guitars, flagsand stars. Similarly, in the representation of nature and the rurallandscape we find formal and conceptual parallels between Modotti’sphotographs and muralism; motifs of cactus, corn and the magueyplant recur, as do tools of labour associated with the popular classes,such as the machetes and shovels of the agrarian labourers. They alsofrequently depict popular scenes, traditional festivals, corridos or songs,crafts and customs.

These parallels between Modotti and the muralists are inscribed ina network in which different approaches and proposals converge

Clemente Orozco painting a detail of Campesina Family, National Preparatory School, San Ildefonso, Tina Modotti

Collection, Photography Archive, Institute of Aesthetic Studies (IIE) at the National Autonomous University of Mexico(UNAM)

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through the different artistic languages that make up the Mexicanimaginary, a subject to which we are inevitably brought by anyconsideration of culture and nationalism in the period from the1920s to the ’50s. In this manner the cinematographic images ofEisenstein and Emilio Indio Fernandez, the photography of GabrielFigueroa and even the films of Luis Bunel coincide and sometimesstand in opposition to each other. The same can be said of thepaintings of Carlos Merida, Manuel Rodrıguez Lozano, RobertoMontenegro, Rufino Tamayo and muralists of various generations;the graphic work of Leopoldo Mendez and members of the Workshopof Popular Graphic Art (Taller de Grafica Popular, TGP); and thephotography of Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Agustın Jimenez and LuisMarquez.

A significant example of this common view with the muralists isfound in the photographs that Modotti took of Rivera’s murals at theMinistry of Public Education (Secretarıa de Educacion Publica, SEP)and at Chapingo, and of Orozco’s murals at San Ildefonso.6 Commis-sioned by the artists themselves, she took these photographs very soonafter the paintings were completed. In many cases she creates a singleimage of the work, as with the easel work of Diego Rivera or thepanels Blood of the Revolutionary Martyrs Fertilizing the Earth (Lasangre de los martires revolucionarios fertilizando la tierra) at Chapingoand The Orgy (La orgıa) at the Ministry of Public Education; but in

Diego Rivera, Symbols of the New Order, Chapel, Autonomous University of Chapingo,Tina Modotti Collection, Photography Archive, IIE, UNAM

274

6. Chapingo was a modelschool set up in 1924 on anestate expropriated byPresident Alvaro Obregon. Itwas dedicated to the study ofagriculture and livestockhusbandry and functioned asa boarding school, withdormitories for the students,houses for staff,experimental fields, farms,laboratories, sports facilitiesand cultural centres. In 1974it became ChapingoAutonomous University(Universidad AutonomaChapingo).

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others she photographically re-creates the murals, establishing arelationship with them through her framing, which leads to specificappreciation of certain details, rhythms, formal elements andassociations. This is the case with her images of the panel We Want toWork (Queremos trabajar) at the Ministry of Public Education,which emphasizes the figure at the top and the text: ‘all the wealth ofthe world comes from fields’; of Literacy (Alfabetizacion), whichdraws a parallel between the products of the land and culture, with ayoung girl who reaches up to receive a book while at her right siderests a basket of corn on whose edge we see the signature of DiegoRivera with the hammer and sickle; or with the rhythm found in twodifferent shots of the panel The Dance of Ribbons (La danza de loslistones).

Interestingly, she photographed panels in which Rivera hadpainted her, either highlighting her work as a social activist or repre-senting her physical beauty. In the series of murals on social develop-ment in the Assembly Hall (formerly the chapel) of Chapingo, she

Diego Rivera, Literacy, detail of Ballad of the Revolution, Ministry of Education, TinaModotti Collection, Photography Archive, IIE, UNAM

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appears nude in Sleeping Earth (Tierra dormida), located in the archsupport of the choir, and in the panel The Earth Enslaved (Tierraoprimida). She evokes revolutionary virtue at the Ministry of PublicEducation, where she is depicted holding a cartridge belt with hercomrade Julio Antonio Mella, a prominent Cuban revolutionary;both are located on the right side of the famous panel known asthe Distribution of Arms or In the Arsenal (Entrega de armas or Enel arsenal), which significantly begins the series of murals Ballad ofthe Revolution (Corrido de la revolucion). Diego Rivera includedFrida Kahlo as a central figure in this mural. Vittorio Vidaliappears with Mella and Modotti, and David Alfaro Siqueiros,wearing a hat with a small star, is located among the urban labourerson the far left.

In the series of photographs of the Tina Modotti Collection at theInstitute of Aesthetic Studies her photographic focus is characterized bythe emphasis of certain details. These include faces, whether those offamous figures such as Emiliano Zapata or Frida Kahlo, or of symbolic

Diego Rivera, The Earth Enslaved, West Wall of Social Development, Chapel, Autonomous University of Chapingo, TinaModotti Collection, Photography Archive, IIE, UNAM

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figures such as urban workers or rural peasants (such as in the panel ASingle Front/Un solo frente and We want to Work), of women (as seenin the panels Union, Literacy and Guaranties/Union, Alfabetizacionand Garantıas) or popular groups (as presented in Allocation of Land/Reparto de tierras).

Another recurring motif in her images is hands. By reframing thehands that Rivera paints in his murals – as in the panels, ceilings andvaults at Chapingo – Modotti underlines their ideological significance,but she also brings to the fore their formal aspects and the artistic skillsof the painter. Thus ascending vertical lines are established by theraised hands in The Protest (La protesta), and in the panel WhomeverWants to Eat, Works (El que quiera comer, que trabaje), or a compositionof curved lines is set up by the soft, rounded forms of the hands and bodiesin The Ages (Las eras) and in The Dance of Ribbons. Modotti also framesthe strong pointing hands in Allocation of Land or The Co-operative (Lacooperativa).

Hands and fists feature consistently in the murals and paintings pro-duced by the muralists in Mexico between the 1920s and ’40s, and also

Diego Rivera, Distribution of Arms or In the Arsenal, detail of Ballad of the Revolution, Ministry of Education, TinaModotti Collection, Photography Archive, IIE, UNAM

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in some work by Siqueiros made in the 1950s, while photographs ofhands by Modotti include Hands of a Washerwoman (1928) andHands of a Puppeteer (1929). Influenced by vanguard practices, particu-larly those of Edward Weston, Modotti’s photographs fragment the bodyin order to centre attention on an element of interest. In the 1930s photo-graphers such as Aurora Eugenia Latapı, Luis Marquez and ManuelAlvarez Bravo, among others, also made photographs in which handsare the primary subject.

Finally, Modotti photographed a significant number of details ofpanels in which children and women appear in different attitudesand activities. This focus is very particular to Modotti, and recalls hernumerous photographs of women, children and mothers with their chil-dren. In her photographs of Rivera’s murals at the Ministry she capturesintimate scenes, such as those of a boy sitting next to a dog and eating ataco (Rain/La lluvia); of children in the rhythmic compositions of TheDance of Ribbons or in Fruits of the Revolution (Los frutos de larevolucion); of children writing (The End of the Song/Fin del corrido);

Diego Rivera, The Protest, detail of Ballad of the Revolution, Ministry of Education, Tina Modotti Collection, PhotographyArchive, IIE, UNAM

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of a little boy who tenderly takes the hand of an adult (The WoundedMan/El herido); or of the image of Diego Rivera’s own daughter Lupe(Union).

In Mexico, in addition to this collection of photos at theInstitute of Aesthetic Studies, Modotti’s photos can also be foundin the Photography Library of the National Institute of Anthropologyand History (Instituto Nacional de Antropologıa e Historia,INAH), Pachuca, in the Museum of Modern Art, at Casa Lamm,7

and in private collections (such as that of Ava Vargas). Abroad,photographic material by Modotti is safeguarded at the FoundationTina Modotti in Udine, Italy, and in the United Statesphotographs may be found in Rochester, New York in the GeorgeEastman House and in California in the Weston Gallery, amongother places.

There has been a stream of research, exhibitions and publicationson this photographer, notably the reissue of one of the earliest studieson Modotti, Mildred Constantine’s study published in 1975, the com-pilation of Modotti and Weston’s letters by Antonio Saborit published

Tina Modotti, Hands of Puppeteer, photo taken from Margaret Hooks, Tina Modotti, Photographer and Revolutionary,

Pandora, London, 1933, p 190

279

7. Previously in the CentroCultural ArteContemporaneo.

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in 1991, the documentary video by Alejandra Islas and RaquelBolanos produced between 1995 and 1996, the short film by MarıaBardischewski and Ursula Jeshel from the German Federal Republicmade in 1981, and the research by Margaret Hooks for her bookTina Modotti, Photographer and Revolutionary, published in 1993,and the aforementioned thesis by Mariana Figarella, from which Iadopted various ideas for this article.8 Among the exhibitions,the 1996 show at the Centro de la Imagen in Mexico City, entitled‘Tina Modotti: A New Vision, 1929’, included documents andforty-one of the sixty photographs that were included in the signifi-cant exhibition of Modotti’s work in 1929 at the National Libraryof Mexico.9 Significant works on Modotti published in the pasttwenty-five years include those by Christiane Barkhausen Canale(1989), Elena Poniatowska (1992), Pino Caccuci (1993) and GarcıaPena y Saborit (1999).10

Luis Marquez, Untitled, 1930s, Luis Marquez Collection, Photography Archive, IIE,

UNAM

280

8. See Mildred Constantine,Tina Modotti, una vidafragil, Fondo de CulturaEconomica, Mexico City,1979 and Antonio Saborit,Una mujer sin paıs, Cal yArena, Mexico City, 1991.Marıa Bardishewski andUrsula Jeshel’s short film isavailable at UNAM’sFilmoteca. Additionally,Hooks has sold the rightsto her book Tina Modotti,Photographer andRevolutionary, op cit, to afilm production company.

9. The year 1996 marked thecentenary of the birth ofModotti, along with thoseof Siqueiros and XavierGuerrero.

10. See Christiane BarkhausenCanale, Verdad y leyendade Tina Modotti, Casa de laAmericas, Cuba, 1989;Elena Poniatowska,Tinısima, Era, Mexico,1992; Pino Cacucci, Losfuegos, las sombras, elsilencio. Una biografıa deAsunta Lugia Adelaide-Tina Modotti, JoaquınMortiz, Mexico, 1993; andGarcıa Pena y Saborit, TinaModotti, vivir y morir enMexico, Mexico City,Conaculta, 1999.

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The work and activities of this Italian photographer continue toattract specialists from different areas, so that studies such as that byXavier Moyssen, once isolated, have acquired a broader significance.

Translated by Theresa Avila

A version of this article was originally published in Spanish in Anales del Instituto deInvestigaciones Esteticas, vol 23, no 78, spring 2001, pp 175–188.

Edward Weston, Hand of Amado Galvan, 1926, photo taken from Gilles Mora et al,

Edward Weston: Forms of Passion, Harry N Abrams, Boston and London, 1995, p 92

281

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