Manuel Álvarez Bravo: at one hundred
"All the pathos of Mexico is placed by him within our reach: where Alvarez Bravo stopped, where he paused to capture a light, a sign, a silence, is not merely where the heart of Mexico beats but also where the artist could present, with a unique discernment, the plainly objective value of his emotion. Served in the great movements of his inspiration by the rarest sense of quality as well as an infallible technique, Manuel Alvarez Bravo... has elevated himself to that which Baudelaire called the eternal style". -- André Breton
ROSEGALLERY commemorates the one-hundredth birthday of Manuel Alvarez Bravo with a collection of his silver and platinum prints, encompassing many of his most celebrated images as well as previously unpublished photographs. As inspiration, contemporary, and pupil to many of the past century's most prominent artists, Alvarez Bravo can lay claim, as few artists can, to the modern period in its entirety, with which his longevous oeuvre is inextricably bound. Bravo's photographs are not surreal: they do not rely on the disjunction of image or subject for their provocation; rather they are a natural, elegant confluence of personal symbols and cultural perspicacity arranged under his intuitive skill and inimitable aesthetic. Thus enfolded within his self-described and perfectly realized "fantasy" rather than a specific location or time, Bravo's images today retain the expressive wit with which they were first imbued.
