The Warsaw Voice
April 13, 2005

CAPTURED TIME

A new photo exhibition is on display at the Center for Contemporary
Art (CSW). It presents the work of Mexican photographer Flor Garduno,
born in 1957. Garduno studied art at the San Carlos Academy in
Mexico. For two years she was an assistant to photographer Manuel
Alvarez Bravo. Garduno has worked as an independent photographer
since 1980, displaying her work in numerous galleries and museums in
Mexico, the United States and Europe (exhibitions in Paris, London
and Zurich).

The CSW presents one of her most beautiful projects, the series
Testigos del tiempo (Witnesses of Time). This is a documentary of
human life outside large urban centers, a record of local people and
their ceremonies. The pictures were taken in the years 1983-1991. In
terms of subject matter, the exhibition resembles the brilliant film
Seasons by Armenian director Artavazd Peleshian, recently shown at
the CSW.

Garduno’s photographs are very rich in form, while Peleshian is
slightly more economical with respect to expression. “Garduno
photographs life, religious ceremonies and social events from a
distance, with great care for composition and balance in the picture,
irrespective of whether she shows the real world of the poor or
whether her photos depict landscape, architecture or nature. She
achieves this through very sophisticated but-just like
Peleshian-economical means, in which light and composition play the
most important role,” said the curator of the exhibition.

Mexican photography is highly praised internationally, in large part
thanks to the late Manuel Alvarez Bravo, its most eminent
representative and Garduno’s mentor. Many other outstanding Mexican
photographers have made names for themselves in the past 50
years-including Garduno. Her art focuses on South American
countries-her native Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Ecuador,
Bolivia-regions with which she feels the strongest emotional and
cultural affinity.

The exhibition Testigos del tiempo enjoys enormous popularity
worldwide and has already been presented in 35 museums, including the
Art Institute of Chicago, the Center of Creative Photography in
Tuscon, fine art museums in Mexico, Chile and Argentina, the Musee de
l’Elysee in Lausanne and Salamanca University, Spain. In Warsaw, the
exhibition will be shown through the end of May.

Center for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski Castle, 6 Ujazdowskie Ave.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress