When most people snap pictures with their cellphones or digital cameras, their intent is simple: Record whatever immediate reality is in front of them at the moment.
But for the five widely recognized Mexican and Mexican-American artists featured in a new exhibition at Museo de las Americas, photography provides a means to see beyond the tangible to something spiritual, metaphorical and mysterious.
The show's evocative title, "Her Gaze/Su Mirada," points to this preternatural ability, as well as broader implications of the word.
"We always talk about the gaze — the gaze of the photographer, the gaze of the public, the gaze of a man on a woman and vice versa," said Kathy Vargas, a participating photographer from San Antonio.
"What is the female gaze? I guess that's what the show is about. What are women looking at? How are they looking at it? Is it different from the way a man would look at it?"
By focusing only on Latina photographers, curator Maruca Salazar, Museo's executive director, has expressly narrowed her focus to an artistic point of view that is not just female but also Latina.
The question is: Do these two pivotal identity markers come together to produce a distinctive vision? The more than 50 black-and-white and color images on display provide compelling evidence that the answer is yes.
It is a rich, perceptive world view that finds deep roots in the Latino embrace of the cycle of life and death and encompasses metaphorical and transcendent dimensions beyond the merely physical.
At the same time, it is a vantage point of the outsider. Although a Latina sits on the Supreme Court, Latinos in the United States still struggle to be fully enfranchised with equal pay and all that mainstream society has to offer.
"We are, I don't really want to use the word 'marginalized,' but I guess I could use that word," said Albuquerque photographer Delilah Montoya. "Even the word 'Latina' was
There is no doubt that each of these photographers — the youngest born in 1976, the oldest in 1942 — has a distinctive visual style and subject matter.
In 1979-88, for example, Graciela Iturbide, the most famous of the five, took her camera to the isthmus city of Juchitán in Oaxaca, Mexico, creating enigmatic images of its ancient, matriarchal society.
In a series of photos along the American-Mexican border, Montoya, who takes an overtly sociopolitical stance in her photographs, explores the clash between the area's rugged beauty and the frequent deaths of immigrants there.
Vargas confronted the death of her mother and her ensuing grief in a shrine-like installation that combines hanging and wall-mounted photographs with a sculpture that extends their multilayered symbolism.
Common themes
Divergent, yes, but certain commonalities run through these and the images by the two other featured photographers — Yesika Felix and Flor Garduño, both from Mexico.
Among those commonalities is a drive to define themselves, something that Montoya has sought to do in the Chicano communities where she has lived in Denver and Albuquerque, and in connection with other artists, musicians and writers.
"We were more or less forming our identity," she said, "forming a way of speaking about who we are and what our issues are. And, of course, the issues change throughout time."
Though what differentiates how men and women perceive things is nearly impossible to pin down and has been debated for centuries, it seems clear a dichotomy does exist.
"I tried to truly analyze why women are different when they take a picture," Salazar said. "What happens when they take a picture? How do they see things? Definitely, there is something there that tells me that we totally look at things differently."
Not surprisingly, the show contains many views of women, none more provocative then Montoya's series of feminist-infused images of female boxers.
"You think of them as very bad girls, (niñas)malcriadas," she said. "I wanted to find out who they are and why are they pounding each other. And what does violence look like with women? Does violence look the same as it does on a man?"
Defiant gazes
Greeting viewers at the entrance of the exhibition is the portrait, "Jackie Chavez" (2006). Posed in her uniform with boxing gloves boldly emblazoned with the abbreviation "TKO," the sitter stares directly at the viewer — adding a defiant dimension to the show's title, "Her Gaze."
"The strong woman in the photograph is saying to the viewer, 'Here I am, and I'm looking out too. I'm not just here to be looked at. I'm going to be looking at you, too,' " Vargas said.
Similarly, Iturbide presents her now-iconic take on the unbowed, independent woman in "Our Lady of the Iguanas" (1979), a portrait depicting a marketplace vendor in Juchitán wearing a group of iguanas on her head like a headdress.
In an alternative vein are a group of female nudes by Garduño that are certainly sexual but not in an erotic way, as they might have been through the lens of a man. Instead, she seems to be emphasizing the women's natural beauty and fecundity, tying them to the ancient notion of Mother Earth.
This connection links her directly with a Latino sensibility that emphasizes the relationship between humankind and nature, embraces the inevitable life cycle and does not shy from death and what might lie beyond.
"A lot of our work is very much about metaphor, that it's not just what you see on the surface," said Vargas. "It is about the spiritual and what unites the spirit with the physical."
Magic realism
This kind of supernatural realm is sometimes described as magic realism, an aesthetic that first emerged in Europe in the early 20th century but found particular resonance in Latin America, especially in the literature of Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriel García Márquez and many others.
This approach, which expands the notion of reality to take in elements of magic, myth and religion, extends as well to Latin-American visual art, such as the paintings of Frida Kahlo and the photography of Manuel Álvarez Bravo.
It has been a strong influence on Iturbide, a student of Bravo, suffusing her 13 images on view, such as "Cementerio (Cemetery)" (1988), a haunting scene in which dozens of what are apparently sparrows take to the sky at once.
There has been much debate in recent decades around exhibitions of this kind that critics would argue segregate, even ghettoize, certain societal groups like women.
But Vargas believes the day of such debates is over. Like the rest of the Latina photographers in the exhibition, her works are now regularly shown in mainstream venues of all kinds.
"It doesn't bother me because we've done all things now and because we all are everywhere," she said of "Her Gaze." "This is just another excuse for a show, as far as I'm concerned. It's kind of nice that it's women because we can sit and gossip and go shopping together."
Kyle MacMillan: 303-954-1675 orkmacmillan@denverpost.com
Photography. Museo de las Americas, 861 Santa Fe Drive. This exhibition showcases the works of five widely recognized Latina photographers of varying generations: Yesika Felix, Flor Garduño, Graciela Iturbide, Delila Montoya and Kathy Vargas. Through May 29. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays and noon to 5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. $4, $3 students and seniors and free for children younger than 13 and members. 303-571-4401 ormuseo.org
Read more:Photography show looks through Latina eyes - The Denver Posthttp://www.denverpost.com/entertainment/ci_17286464#ixzz1DJCG1bDL
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