Mexico Through Foreign Eyes: 1850-1990/Visto Por Ojos Extranjeros [Hardcover]

Carole Naggar (Author), Fred Ritchin (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1993

Since the 19th century, Mexico has been a constant source of inspiration for artists and photographers, who return again and again to document the dense tapestry of its culture and to record precise images of its breath-taking terrain. "Mexico Through Foreign Eyes" contains 225 black and white and colour images taken by over 50 photographers from around the world including Paul Strand, Tina Modotti, Abbas, Linda Connor and Kent Klich. The accompanying 15 texts, presented here bilingually in English and Spanish, combine with the photographs to present a diversity of visions of Mexico: intuitive, surreal, documentary and mythic.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A vibrant, disquieting hymn to Mexico's irreducible complexity, this catalog documents a photography exhibit opening in Mexico City and traveling to the International Center of Photography in New York City. The 225 color and black-and-white photographs reproduced here for the most part avoid anthropological documentation or local specificity; instead, they aim at an emotional comprehension of the cauldron that is "many Mexicos . . . a multitude of coincidental lives." Naggar and Ritchin, curators of the exhibit, have assembled pictures by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Edward Steichen, Andrew Kertesz, Paul Strand, Laura Gilpin, Swedish child psychologist Kent Klich and 52 other photographers for whom travel in Mexico was a transformative encounter. The images are spliced with 16 texts, including Andre Breton's incantatory homage to Diego Rivera, Sergei Eisenstein's reliving of the ironically life-affirming Day of the Dead festival, and Swiss journalist Gertrude Blom's report on the rape of Mexico's tropical jungles.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Foreign artists have long succumbed to the strong visual and spiritual claims of Mexico. This volume brings together 225 black-and-white and color photographs of Mexico taken by European and North American artists over the last 150 years. The photographs range from documentary to surreal; some of the earliest are anthropological studies, which today stand out for their beauty and poignancy rather than for their documentary value. Photographers represented include Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paul Strand, Tina Medotti, Laura Gilpin, and William Henry Jackson. The text, in Spanish and English, includes essays by Andre Breton, Sergei Eisenstein, Edward Weston, and many others. Some of the essays, with specific discussions of aperture and lenses, are for the experts, but on the whole this book--the catalog of an exhibit that will travel from Mexico City to New York--will be thoroughly enjoyed by all general readers with any interest in Mexico.
- Mary Margaret Benson, Linfield Coll. Lib., McMinnville, Ore.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc; 1st edition (April 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393034739
• ISBN-13: 978-0393034738
• Product Dimensions: 12.3 x 9.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,716,585 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)