Tina Modotti. Retrospective

90 years after his first exhibition, from May 1 to October 5 2014, the Palazzo Madama gives homage to Tina Modotti ( 1896-1942 ), whose exceptional human history, art and politics has made her one of the most famous photographers in the world and a of the most eclectic personalities of the last century. The exhibition, which has the sponsorship of the City of Turin, is housed in the Medieval Court of the Senate and was born from the collaboration between Fondazione Torino Musei, the cultural association Cinemazero and the publisher Silvana Editoriale .
Always, when the words "art" and "artistic " are applied to my photographic work, I feel I disagree ... I consider myself a photographer, nothing more. If my pictures are different from what is usually done in this field, it is precisely because I try not to produce art, but honest photographs , without distortion or manipulation ( Tina Modotti , On Photography )
The exhibition covers the whole of the life of Tina, as a photographer, as a muse and as an activist. Reconstructs both his extraordinary artistic career - which saw the first actress of theater and cinema in California and then photographs in post-revolutionary Mexico twenties - and its not common human story. A route - map seems aimed at the development of his story , from the family to his love ; the first shots , influenced by Comrade Edward Weston, the last, few, little-known photos taken in Berlin , by which time the photographer admitted the impossibility of continuing his career with modern technical tools too , which did not allow his particular approach , methodical and laid. A path of aesthetic and formal research , which guides the viewer in the evolution of styles and techniques of Modotti , passing by the still life and the children dell'Estridentismo shots in the first period , to arrive - no tears, but gradually - to portraits of women of Tehuantepec , passing through the images more political and "revolutionary". A photograph always balanced and thoughtful , with white and blacks pasty but very different in tone, the result of much thought and experimentation. Cores defined and consistent tracing the line of research of the photographer, divided into phases and different themes Stadium (Mexico, 1925) and Tank no. 1 (Mexico, 1926) testify to the careful work to capture volumes, emphasized by cutting perspective bold and rigorously geometric, which is in contrast to the softening of the lines of still lifes as El Manito (Mexico, 1924) or the famous Calle (Mexico 1924 ca ), where the contrast between light and shadow gives an almost carnal concreteness to the still life. In the portraits of the Mexican season the survey focuses on the human subject, with unusual cuts, designed to mark the emotional dimension, parallel to its political commitment , human and social side of the protagonists, well represented by photographs as Julio Antonio Mella on his deathbed ( Mexico, 1929) and Girl who gets the milk (Mexico, 1926) or the famous shot of the March of campesinos (Mexico, 1928). Fundamental to complete the overview of this figure is the series of portraits made ??by his companion Edward Weston, where the explosive force of the physical presence of Modotti also declares awareness and total adherence to a precise idea of "doing photography " which reads as evidenced by Tina (Mexico, 1924) and The White Iris ( sl , 1921) , leading to a rare ease on the one hand and on the other objective .
A Modotti that seeks solutions to the various photographic challenges that arise over the years and are also confirmed in the letters , exhibited, in Weston, master and mistress with whom he shares an artistic journey never exhausted.
A journey that educates the viewer's eye contemporary , bringing the measure calibrated and thoughtful that characterizes the whole work of Modotti , capturing the strength characteristic of photography: his not wanting to be at all costs "art", but his having be qualitatively valid in order to tell the world and the infinite aspects of life.

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