"No city of the new continent, without even excepting those of the United States, can display such great and solid scientific establishments as the capital of Mexico."
The Enlightenment is commonly thought as a movement that originated in Germany and France in the 18th Century. But to research further is to uncover the Latin American writers and thinkers who were conceiving similar ideas at the same time. The prominent German scholar Alexander von Humboldt travelled across the continent during this period. On his return he published a detailed account of his visit that includes the above remark on Mexico City.
For the exhibition In Mexiko acclaimed German photographer Candida Höfer (Eberswalde, 1944) visited the country in October 2015, photographing several iconic buildings in the states of Mexico City, Jalisco, Guanajuato, Puebla, Oaxaca and the State of Mexico. Marked by the Dual Year of Mexico and Germany that runs until May 2017,...the exhibition will tour to institutions across Mexico, United States and Europe, including the Amparo Museum and Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso. Initiated by OMR in collaboration with the Goethe Institute, the project generated an important exchange for Höfer, who for the past 40 years has photographed the interior of numerous international venues including the Louvre, The Uffizi Gallery and the Hermitage.
Yet the artist does not consider herself to be an architectural photographer. In her words "an absent visitor is frequently the topic of conversation." In addition to photographing empty theatres, libraries, palaces and churches—with each providing insight into various sociohistorical contexts—a significant body of work is "Projects: Done," 14 series of photographs from 1968 to 2008 in which subjects range from the City of Liverpool to Turkish immigrants in Germany. Addressing the consequence of displacement and specifically absence, the artist can be seen as anthropologist. In this way Höfer´s practice reveals cross-cultural connections through mutual elements of symmetry, light and vacant space.
The images exhibited as part of In Mexiko are distinctly Mexican whilst foreign influences are also apparent: for example the Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl volcanoes on the stage curtain of the Palacio de las Bellas Artes, designed by American luxury brand Tiffany. Yet not one element exceeds the other and instead commonly identified sensations take precedence. Whether it is the palpable richness of the velvet curtains at Teatro Juárez, Guanajuato, or the smaller photographs of backstage doorways and staircases, these worksvisually bridge public and private space, regardless of nationality.
An enigmatic figure in Mexican history who can be seen to channel this shift in public-private experience is Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. She was controversial during her lifetime—seeking to educate herself in a patriarchal 17th Century society, prior to The Enlightenment—and since, due to political ownership of her belongings. De la Cruz was an obsession for writer Octavio Paz. He published the essay "Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: or the traps of faith" in 1982, highlighting the difficulties of her existence in colonised Mexico, then known as New Spain and why she subsequently had to renounce literature. In her poem "Sentiments of the Absent," de la Cruz can be seen to pre-empt her preclusion from writing, whilst capturing the crux of In Mexiko:
If you see the clear sky,
Such is the simplicity of my own soul;
And if, of miserly light,
Of shadows that cloak the clear day,
It is with your darkness and your harshness,
An image of my life appears in this absence
Entrada actualizada el el 22 sep de 2016
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