NYAB Event - Rodrigo Moya “Ojos Bien Abiertos (Eyes Wide Open)"

Rodrigo Moya “Ojos Bien Abiertos (Eyes Wide Open)"

Throckmorton Fine Art

This event has ended.

A special exhibition of 35 signed limited edition, gelatin silver prints by the acclaimed Mexican photographer Rodrigo Moya. This important exhibition is the first New York show dedicated to the work of Rodrigo Moya.

Kraige Block, Executive Director of Throckmorton Fine Art, who has curated more than 80 shows for the gallery, says, “Moya’s work exploring the social and political turmoil in Mexico, Cuba and other Latin American countries goes far beyond mere photo journalism. Our selection of images also demonstrates his unique talents as also a major portrait and architectural photographer. “

“The work of Rodrigo Moya dating from the fifties and sixties makes up a significant chapter in Latin American photography,” says Spencer Throckmorton.

“This exhibition underscores his masterful use of light and shadow as well as composition along with his sensitivity to the people,” says Throckmorton. The photographer’s unposed images run the gamut from the revolution leader Che Guevara to painter Diego Rivera and Venezuelan guerillas to street children. Moya was the only Latin American to cover the US invasion of the Dominican Republic and the battle for Santo Domingo in April 1965.

Born to Mexican parents in Columbia in 1934, Moya grew up in Mexico and apprenticed with the photographer Guillermo Angulo. His influences were Walker Evans, Eugene Smith and Dorothea Lange, who documented the Great Depression, and Italian neo-realist cinema, His life as a documentary photographer lasted only 12 years, from 1956-1968. Moya had abandoned his negatives for over 30 years but a bout with cancer led him to reconsider his position in photography. Working from thousands of negatives, Moya created signed limited edition gelatin silver prints.

Among the celebrated photographs on view are Moya’s iconic portraits of a cigar chomping Che Guevara titled “El Che melancolio” and a photograph of Nobel Prize winner in Literature Gabriel Garcia Marques with a shiner-- the result of long standing feud with Peruvian writer Mario Vargas. Also on view are the photographer’s images of five Venezuelan guerillas and street children and others.
“My photography was always in contact with reality, with passing life, with people without power and without future,” said Moya.

[Image: Rodrigo Moya “Che Melancolico, Cuba” (1964) Gelatin Silver Print]