El Museo del Barrio in New York City will be hosting with Televisa Foundation and CONACULTA the art exhibit ‘Under The Mexican Sky: Gabriel Figueroa, Art and Film.’ The exhibition – presented for the first time in a museum in New York – on view March 4 through June 27, 2015, celebrates the successes and legacy of Gabriel Figueroa (1907-1997), a prolific Mexican cinematographer who worked both in Mexico and Hollywood. Figueroa built an enduring image of Mexico though his iconic visual style and is considered one of the more important cinematographers of the 20th century.
Figueroa collaborated with a vibrant community of international visual artists, including Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and Manuel Álvarez Bravo—as well leading directors such as Emilio Fernández, John Ford, Luis Buñuel, and John Huston. Deemed “the fourth muralist” by Diego Rivera, Figueroa forged a vision of Mexican identity and culture that resonated powerfully with Mexican and international audiences.
The exhibition features film clips, stills, and paintings by eminent artists of the mid-20th century in Mexico. Televisa Foundation collection, the collections of the Museo de la Estampa and the Museo Nacional in Mexico, as well as Figueroa’s own archive have also provided photographs, prints, posters and documents. Also shown is film, video and photographic work by other artists and filmmakers from the period such as Buñuel, Sergei Eisenstein, Edward Weston, and Tina Modotti, who draw from the vast inventory of distinctly Mexican imagery associated with Figueroa’s cinematography or were influenced by his vision.
The exhibition features film clips, stills, and paintings by eminent artists of the mid-20th century in Mexico. Televisa Foundation collection, the collections of the Museo de la Estampa and the Museo Nacional in Mexico, as well as Figueroa’s own archive have also provided photographs, prints, posters and documents.
Also shown is film, video and photographic work by other artists and filmmakers from the period such as Buñuel, Sergei Eisenstein, Edward Weston, and Tina Modotti, who draw from the vast inventory of distinctly Mexican imagery associated with Figueroa’s cinematography or were influenced by his vision.
“The content of the exhibition comes from a number of sources and archives and fulfills multiple functions. However, when taken as a whole, it represents Gabriel Figueroa’s journey through the vast expanse of the image itself. From still and portrait photography he moves on to develop his own cinematographic style. He then returned again to still images in which his lighting tests were transformed into iconic symbols. These images exist independently of the films they originally referred to; they exemplify a distinctive cinematographic eloquence—the already famous Figueroa style” said Claudia Monterde, Adjunct Curator at Televisa Foundation.
