Flor Garduno “Trilogy”

Baruch College/Sidney Mishkin Gallery

[Image: Flor Garduño "Totem, Mexico" (1987) Carbon/giclée print, 50 x 50 in.]

This event has ended.

The Mishkin Gallery at Baruch College will present the exhibition, Flor Garduño: Trilogy. This traveling exhibition was organized by Flor Garduño and the Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso and distributed by the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego, California.

Born in Mexico City, the photographer Flor Garduño takes inspiration from the often solitary and desolate landscape of her native country. Although photographs were taken in locations as varied as Mexico, Poland, and Switzerland, her works are greatly influenced by the Mexican master Manuel Álvarez Bravo in their solitude and surrealist overtones. While working under another Mexican photographer who greatly influenced her, Mariana Yampolsky, Garduño developed her own unique style. Garduño’s subjects are indigenous children, women’s bodies, along with the animals and plants that have come to symbolize the sacred, surreal, and magical spirit of Mexican culture. She always works in black and white (never in color) and eschews digital photography, shooting only using film.

Flor Garduño: Trilogy presents a selection of sixty works taken over four decades of the artist’s career, including the iconic Totem, Mexico and others. Garduño’s work has received several prestigious awards, including twice winning the Swiss Federal Fund for Culture Prize, the German edition of the Kodak Award for her book, Witness of Time, and the Photo District News Award for the book, Inner Light.

Flor Garduño: Trilogy is split into three parts: Bestiarium, Fantastic Women, and Silent Natures. Each thematic section reflects the power of the feminine and indigenous traditions through depictions tied strongly to ancient myths and rituals. Many of Garduño’s images echo the literary movement of magical realism.

Bestiarium

In Bestiarium, works such as Nahual Man (1993) reveal a subject in traditional clothing, half of his face covered by an animal headdress. Nahual Man is as much as portrait as it is a timeless evocation of ritual and the pre-Hispanic concept of nahual, where the human body or spirit transforms magically into animal form.

Fantastic Women

In Fantastic Women, the photographs focus on the experience of women in the world. The female form is alternately represented as symbol of fertility and embodiment of innocence.

Silent Natures

Silent Natures presents still life and landscapes that impart surprising plays of texture and form to reveal the secret stories behind objects.