History is portrayed from different perspectives and each one has its own name. With the aim of broadening the historical vision and recognizing its authorship, the Fundación Mapfre presents two photographers separated by era, technique, history and, after all, perspective in a simultaneous exhibition; Tina Modotti and the Catalunya of Jules Ainaud. The exhibition, curated by Isabel Tejeda and Jep Martí i Baiget, opens its doors from June 8 to September 3 at the KBr photography center in Barcelona, on Avenida del Litoral, 30.
Tina Modotti, whose photographic corpus spans from the 1920s to the 1930s, embodied a particular and unrepeatable vision. Each photograph bears the mark of who she was and this always placed her on both sides of the camera. She took the photo and was in the photo. Thus, Modotti was not just a photographer. Modotti was a woman, she was an emigrant, she was a character who was reconstructing herself throughout her career and she was a communist militant. And all of this remained in her work.
Italian by birth, she traveled at seventeen to the United States, where she learned the art of photography from Edward Weston. Although he overshadowed the authorship of the photographer, she had a different perspective from the beginning. You only have to look at the images of both characters from the Circus Tent, 1924. Weston was interested in lines; Modotti lowered the camera to the people. The prominence of people as components and recipients of her photography and her goal of political dissemination characterized her work.
Starting in 1923, Modotti settled in Mexico, where she developed her own vision. In her photographs, various elements are repeated; among them, women, workers, and still life. Woman with flag, 1927 attests to the relevance that Modotti gave to women in the revolutionary project. A Mexican woman with a walking disposition carries a flag on her shoulder. It almost seems that it envelops her, that flag and woman form a single figure. Among women, Modotti gave special prominence to mothers, whom she considered the transmitters of all ideology. For this reason, she especially directed her lens at them. However, it was not only women who bore the responsibility for the advancement of communism. It was important to also address the workers. Peasant with hay, 1927-1929 captures a worker who becomes one with his object; the hay. The photographer exhibited the objectification of the worker. She also used details to portray the workers, as she did through the photographs of hands in Hands holding a shovel, 1926-1927. Likewise, still life was an instrument of transmission for Modotti, as shown in the photograph titled Bandolier, sickle and guitar, 1927. These local elements evoke communism and identify it with the country.
In 1930, Modotti was expelled from Mexico. From then on, she traveled to Berlin, Moscow, Spain, among other places, in the service of international communism. She came to have an important presence in the Spanish Civil War as a member of the Red Aid. However, she did not reveal her identity and today it is unknown if she left any photographic work in Spain. At least it is known for certain that the idea for the photo book "El viento del pueblo", by Miguel Hernández, was hers.
Tina Modotti manages to capture the twentieth century through a portrait of herself. Her photographs are a narrative of her trajectory. And not only that. Modotti merges with something that immortalizes her and that does not heed borders; her ideas.
Jules Ainaud is his exhibition partner but works in a very different way. For his part, he captured the 19th century. He did not intend to immortalize ideals, but to admire beauty and surprise his audience. He was in charge of portraying the architecture of the places he was assigned to. From 1863, Ainaud traveled through Spain commissioned by Casa Laurent. Under its shadow, Ainaud's authorship was blurred, as the photographs bore the company's signature. Until now, his name only appears on one photograph. He pursues a commercial objective, so his style is limited to the canons imposed by the Laurent company. His images served so that the portrayed places could be visited without the need for displacement. They were also used for the training of architects.
The exhibition gathers engravings from the time when Ainaud was commissioned to portray Catalonia in 1871 and 1872. Ainaud photographed Tortosa, Tarragona, Montserrat, Poblet, Santes Creus and Barcelona. And although he remained on the sidelines of his work, he had a particular way of capturing what was in front of him. He distanced himself from the buildings he portrayed so that he did not provide their dimensions, but depth. This particular way of portraying buildings and the difficulty of the photographic procedure that used glass negatives give value to Ainaud's work.
The photographs of Tina Modotti and Jules Ainaud share an exhibition despite their difference in perspectives. Modotti's more personal, ideological and with an international setting. Ainaud's with a commercial objective, more static and concentrated. However, both converge in the formation of what is our unique history.