Tina Modotti’s 121st Birthday

Google Dooles 16.08.2017 08:39  Date: August 16, 2017 In a fraction of a second, a camera shutter blinks, rendering the world, unchanging, in soft sepia tones. But the photographer herself was never still. Tina Modotti refused to be a silent observer behind her camera lens. After all, “I cannot solve the problem of life by losing myself in the problem of art,” she wrote. Tina’s early photos were mostly abstract — but telephone wires, staircases, and flowers were subjects that turned her lens away from the “problems of life” she couldn’t ignore. She found a match for her political and cultural views in Mexico, and fell in with a group of avant-garde artists including the painters Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, and the poet Pablo Neruda. Her photography switched focus to represent the everyday laborers and extraordinary folk art of Mexico City, which included documenting much of the Mexican mural movement. Tina gave up her camera in 1931, devoting herself fully to political activism. Her body of work is relatively small, but represents how she lived her life: bold, and with conviction. Happy 121st birthday, Tina. Location: Tags: , , ,