Nacho López:
to have something to say

A John Mraz exhibition

The undeniable existence of the apparently invisible, the dignity of the seemingly insignificant, and the quest for an esthetic to render their testimonies were at the heart of Nacho López’s photography for illustrated magazines during the 1950s.

Digital resource

He constructed his own definition of "lo mexicano" by documenting the plurality of many Mexicos in his photoessays about “worlds apart”. The poor, the prisoners, and the Amerindians who peopled some of his finer photoessays were distant from the middle-class readers of the illustrated magazines. And, they also came from other universes than the homogenous vision offered by the party dictatorship of the pri (Partido Revolucionario Institucional): presidential preeminence, the monopoly of power, the skilled manipulation of mass organizations, and the dilution of class difference and ideology in the dissolvent of nationalism.

He explained his critical position by referring to his early education, “The socialist education I received as an adolescent during the reign of Lázaro Cárdenas (1934-1940) left a profound imprint on my soul.” Fusing social commitment with formal exploration makes him part of a very select company of great photographers, including Tina Modotti, Paul Strand, Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Paolo Gasparini, Sebastião Salgado, and the photographer who most he admired and resembles, W. Eugene Smith. And it is precisely that dialectic that made Nacho the extraordinary imagemaker he was.

His photoessays were published in the most important Mexican illustrated magazines, among them, Hoy, Mañana, y Siempre! (Today, Tomorrow, Always!). He always worked for weeklies, never in newspapers, and almost never covered hard news. In fact, I do not believe that his metier was spontaneous or street photography, but the magazine genre of “features” made up of human interest stories. However, photojournalism is a very wide field, and the capacities of photographers should be understood to be as varied as those who write. In spite of the general perception of him as a photoreporter, I think he would be better described as a photoessayist in the majority of his publications.

John Mraz

To have something
to say
“The most important question for photographers is whether they have something to say about reality.”

Nacho López (1979).

Nacho López: ideologist, teacher and photographer

The hundredth anniversary of his birth provides opportunity to remember the artist, his images, his ideals, everything that shaped one of the most important photographers of 20th century Mexico. Ignacio López Bocanegra (Tampico, November 20, 1923 - Mexico City, October 24, 1986), better known as Nacho López, was driving force of photography who pushed far beyond conventional, established, and authorized limits. A man of lofty ideas and left-wing convictions, he showed us a very different path for approaching photography. His camera recreated photojournalism, photoreportage, and above all, innovated with photo essays—, an avant-garde journalistic genre —alongside editors José Pagés Llergo and Regino Hernández Llergo. With the coming of Nacho López, photographers became professionals, independent creators with their own visual grammar, catapulting the profession to another level within the editorial and journalistic world.

It is important to note that Nacho López revealed an unusual Mexico in his work; that of the underworlds, a Mexico that slumbered while life continued on the surface, that of the helpless or dispossessed. Concurrently, he also worked with other subjects such as dance, music, the city, architecture, the countryside, indigenous people in their native land, objects, and a vast array of unusual themes for photography at that time. The genre overflowed with the everyday, treated with a sharp sense of humour, accentuating social and political contradictions. In addition to an aesthetic he developed, his images would penetrate diverse worlds, he was a great teacher and example with his camera, always at the ready. It was part of his way of conversing, contrasting, discussing; he taught his students a sharp-witty and fierce visual discourse. López was one of the few photo creators who used printed words to show us the paths of visual militancy and the need to construct a discourse that would surpass the known. He revealed, taught, and exercised that historical visual consciousness and from it we learned how to comprehend the importance of photography as a documentary, historical, social, and aesthetic source. Furthermore, his interest led him to cinematography with the same zeal.

In the case of this exhibition, it is an honour to share the words and curation of researcher and photo historian John Mraz—the most prominent specialist in the work of Nacho López, who presents the photographer on the hundredth anniversary of his birth through the full force and quality of his images. Thanks to John Mraz, new generations will be able to familiarize themselves with one of the best photographers in Mexico.

Rebeca Monroy Nasr
deh-inah

<div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'>The Outcasts</h4> </div> <p class='white'> The worlds portrayed by Nacho López are those of the impoverished, the incarcerated, the dead, those who live from strange and dangerous work,...those who were invisibles in periodicals during the <span class='versalitas'>pri</span> dictatorship. And, it must be noted that he insisted on the existence of their <i>worlds</i>, not just as marginalized beings of the universe represented in the era’s press. </p> <div class='col-12 m-0'> </div> <div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'><i>Pool players</i> (1954)</h4> </div> <p class='white'> In his photoessay, “Jugadores de billar: un estudio psicológico de Nacho López” (Pool players: a psychological study by Nacho López), snaggle-toothed pool players in tatters live in “their world of adventures.” They are failures in the larger orb, but their animated and dynamic expressions show that they have constructed their own “fabulous world of triumphs and defeats,” their victors and their vanquished. </p> <div class='col-12 m-0'> <a href='' target='_blank' class='btn-ObjetoDigital'>Digital resource</a> </div> <div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'><i>Incarcerated woman</i> (1950)</h4> </div> <p class='white'> His interest in exploring the worlds apart led him to the universe of those encaged in Mexico City’s penitentiary. There, the prisoners in “Prisión de sueños” (Prison of dreams) exist in a world with its own laws. The existential anguish we see in the faces of the jailed leaves clear that this is a sphere from which there is no exit. A tormented prisoner “Thinks about her children who will surely sleep in the street and steal fruit in the market in order to eat. Perhaps she believes that her destiny is reserved as an inalienable inheritance for her descendants.” </p> <div class='col-12 m-0'> <a href='' target='_blank' class='btn-ObjetoDigital'>Digital resource</a> </div> <div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'><i>Hands that plead</i> (1950)</h4> </div> <p class='white'> “Prisión de sueños” opens with one of the most powerful images in the entire <i>oeuvre</i> of López, that of the hands which beseech from under a rusted door. “Anguish. These hands that still exude the blood of their victims plead for clemency or ask for a cigarette.” The reference to the cigarette alludes to the penitentiary’s peculiar priorities, such as the extraordinary value of cigarettes. </p> <div class='col-12 m-0'> <a href='' target='_blank' class='btn-ObjetoDigital'>Digital resource</a> </div> <div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'><i>The prisoner and the law</i> (1954)</h4> </div> <p class='white'> “Sólo los humildes van al infierno” (Only the humble go to hell) is a reportage on Mexico City's <i>delegaciones</i> (police stations and holding cells). This is evidently the work to which he gave the most of himself, for he wrote in the article's subtitle that he had dedicated “Four weeks to visiting <i>delegaciones</i> in order to show readers a hell that Dante forgot.” Nacho’s narrative offers a counterpoint to the officialist perspective that blames individuals for their problems. Instead, he emphasizes the social element. As the story develops, its central thread is revealed: the “common denominator” that binds all who find themselves in the <i>delegaciones</i> is “hunger, ignorance, helplessness.” Just as the prisoners in the penitentiary, there is no exit from their fate: “For many, it means confronting what they believe is their inexorable destiny: it is part of their lives, an unchangeable routine.” </p> <div class='col-12 m-0'> <a href='' target='_blank' class='btn-ObjetoDigital'>Digital resource</a> </div> <div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'><i>“A mother whose child has been beaten by a vicious father.”</i> (1954)</h4> </div> <p class='white'> The photoessay, “Solo los humildes”, includes various images of battered women and children. I suspect that Nacho discovered this phenomenon during his project, for it must have been a constant occurrence, given the fact that in that period there were no shelters to protect victims of domestic violence. </p> <div class='col-12 m-0'> <a href='' target='_blank' class='btn-ObjetoDigital'>Digital resource</a> </div> <div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'><i>The hidden face</i> (1954)</h4> </div> <p class='white'> The cutline of this photo refers to the insensitivity of the police, and infers that the woman is crying: “The police and the judges in the <i>delegaciones</i> seem to have lost all human sentiments. Nothing moves them, not even a woman's tears.” The problematic of victimization comes to the fore in this photo, for it is not at all clear that the woman is crying; she may well be hiding her face from the camera. This impression is substantiated somewhat by López's own annotation on his envelope containing the negatives: “Woman covering her face with her hand.” Whether the woman is crying or hiding her face, the photo still raises the issue of victim photography. Here, in his role as photojournalist, López has reproduced, as well as, taken advantage of, these individual’s vulnerability. In this sense, his accusation of the police and judges--“nothing moves them”--could be extended to include a photojournalist (or a magazine) who may have invented a woman's tears in order to disguise the aggression of sticking a camera in the face of someone who, evidently, did not wish to have her picture taken. </p> <div class='col-12 m-0'> <a href='' target='_blank' class='btn-ObjetoDigital'>Digital resource</a> </div> <div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'><i>A woman in front of the law</i> (1954)</h4> </div> <p class='white'> The last image of “Solo los humildes” articulately sums up its message, and incarnates its narrative transformation. We see a woman staring ahead, as if she were gazing upon an open book of law before her. Behind, the police have their backs turned and look in the opposite direction. Through this construction, Nacho López seems to assert that the law is an open book that common people can consult, but the guardians of this order act, not only in opposition to the interests of the poor, but contrary to the law as well. Now, however, López takes the question out beyond the police, to indict the nation as a whole: <br> <br> <span class='ps-3 ps-md-5'>But that's the way society is. And because of that, in this suffocating and depressing atmosphere the parade of passions continues: hate, rancor, anger, love, tenderness. Every night in the lugubrious <i>delegaciones</i> a bitter, short, and unknown history is written about the humble who inhabit a beautiful, modern, and progressive capital.</span> </p> <div class='col-12 m-0'> <a href='' target='_blank' class='btn-ObjetoDigital'>Digital resource</a> </div> <div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'><i>Women and the public letter writer</i> (<i>ca.</i> 1950)</h4> </div> <p class='white'> Women go to an <i>escribano</i> to have him write letters or fill in forms that they cannot, because they don’t know how to read or write. He, as a man, has had the opportunity to become literate, something denied them because of their gender. By shooting the scene from a high angle, López traps and takes power away from the women, offering an ocular metaphor for how they are prisoners of their ignorance, because they have not received the education as part of a society in which they are second-class citizens. </p> <div class='col-12 m-0'> <a href='' target='_blank' class='btn-ObjetoDigital'>Digital resource</a> </div>
<div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'>Children</h4> </div> <p class='white'> “Children have always awakened a great tenderness in me, above all, poor children. I see, together with their poverty, their dignity and joy,” Nacho López, 1955. </p> <div class='col-12 m-0'> </div> <div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'><i>Good girl</i> (<i>ca.</i> 1950)</h4> </div> <p class='white'> In December of 1950, López published an excruciatingly sad photoessay composed of images from his archive, “Yo también he sido niño bueno” (I’ve been a good kid too), about poor children and their vain hopes at Christmastime. The essay’s last photo is a moving image of a little girl laughing. The cutline encapsulates the article's intentional contradictions by articulating both the childrens’ vitality, and the disillusions that await them as members of Mexico’s vast impoverished class: <br> <br> <span class='ps-4'>“In spite of being ridiculously poor, she too was good and anticipates her well-earned visit from the Magi, who never fail to hear the requests of those who have been good. But the miracle of her laugh will probably become a sob.”</span> </p> <div class='col-12 m-0'> <a href='' target='_blank' class='btn-ObjetoDigital'>Digital resource</a> </div> <div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'><i>Children with a rat</i> (1951)</h4> </div> <p class='white'> Nonetheless, Nacho also shows the creativity that flowers in the midst of want, “Whoever says the poor don't have toys isn't telling the truth. They have them in their bedrooms, at the reach of a hand, and they share them with those who don't have bedchambers and sleep under the stars.” The photoreportaje, “Una vez fuimos humanos” (We were humans once), also documents the precarious sanitary conditions and misery in the slums, the lack of the most elemental for the children of the poor. </p> <div class='col-12 m-0'> <a href='' target='_blank' class='btn-ObjetoDigital'>Digital resource</a> </div> <div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'><i>Young reader</i> (<i>ca.</i> 1950)</h4> </div> <p class='white'> Poor children lack neither the materials to entertain them nor the places to do so. Poverty is public: the acts that the bourgeoisie and the middleclass practice in the privacy of their houses often are performed by the poor in public places. The photoessay, “La calle lee” (The streets reads), opens with a boy in worn clothing who lies on the sidewalk; his bare feet in the street, he reads (or pretends to read) a newspaper. </p> <div class='col-12 m-0'> <a href='' target='_blank' class='btn-ObjetoDigital'>Digital resource</a> </div> <div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'><i>Child vendor</i> (1950)</h4> </div> <p class='white'> Another activity for poor children is work. This photo carries out a ferocious critique of religion in Mexico and was not published in the photoreportage, “Virgen India.” A boy wearing dirty and torn clothing sells religious articles in front of a poster for the National Guadalupana Association for Mexican Workers. On the poster is a smiling proletarian couple, he dressed in overalls and she in picturesque regional garb; the Virgin of Guadalupe hovers over the pair. I have little doubt that the photo was directed, and believe that the photographer arranged the scene, placing himself so that the poster is framed between the boy and his shadow. Too articulate about the social uses of <i>Guadalupismo</i> in maintaining sharp class differences, and thus heretical both in relation to religion and nationalism, the image could not have appeared in this illustrated article on the Virgin of Guadalupe in the 1950s. </p> <div class='col-12 m-0'> <a href='' target='_blank' class='btn-ObjetoDigital'>Digital resource</a> </div> <div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'><i>The little girl in church</i> (1950)</h4> </div> <p class='white'> The photoreportaje, “Virgen India”, offers images that demonstrate Nacho’s interest in “the sacred and the profane.” The expected pictures of people at prayer are not lacking: photos show them kneeling, exquisitely illuminated by candles. However, this image offers another vision: A young girl is turned in the opposite direction of the people who accompany her; they are praying but she, an unquiet and restless figure, goes against the grain. Moreover, Nacho may have lightened her face to make it stand out, giving her even more power in the image. </p> <div class='col-12 m-0'> <a href='' target='_blank' class='btn-ObjetoDigital'>Digital resource</a> </div> <div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'><i>Girl in Janitzio</i> (1950)</h4> </div> <p class='white'> In his photoreportaje, “Noche de muertos” (Night of the dead), Nacho showed a girl profoundly integrated in a religious rite. Here, he carried out an extraordinary esthetic experiment by having such a sharp focus despite the fact that he limited his lighting to that provided by the candles. As he explained, “I thought it was important not to destroy the dramatic atmosphere with a flash, and so conserve the mysterious, mystical and pagan sense with only the illumination of the candles.” </p> <div class='col-12 m-0'> <a href='' target='_blank' class='btn-ObjetoDigital'>Digital resource</a> </div> <div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'>In the <i>delegación</i> (1954)</h4> </div> <p class='white'> The annihilating ambience of the <i>delegaciones</i> is marvelously reproduced in the form of policemen who hover over a girl in the frame, visually crushing her. Nevertheless, the fact that she returns the camera's gaze gives her an element of vitality lacking in the other published photos, and rescues her as a person capable of acting, even if her activity is no more than that of recognizing the photographer’s presence. In this way, the image contains an autoreflexivity that indicates it is not just a window onto the world, but the act of two people, one being looked at and the other looking, camera in hand and an idea in his head. </p> <div class='col-12 m-0'> <a href='' target='_blank' class='btn-ObjetoDigital'>Digital resource</a> </div> <div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'><i>Venezuelan boy</i> (<i>ca.</i> 1948)</h4> </div> <p class='white'> In 1948-49, Nacho taught photography at the Universidad Central de Caracas, where he made this image. Later, he took it from his archive to include in the photoessay, “Yo también he sido niño bueno”. </p> <div class='col-12 m-0'> <a href='' target='_blank' class='btn-ObjetoDigital'>Digital resource</a> </div>
<div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'>Urban scenes</h4> </div> <p class='white'> “Lights and shadows of Mexico City! Permanent contrast of its people: misery and opulence, serenity and violence in their hearts, past and present in daily life, passion, blood, pain, all that is the Mexican essence…”, <i>Yo, el ciudadano</i> (I, the citizen), Nacho López, 1984. </p> <div class='col-12 m-0'> </div> <div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'><i>The street sweeper</i> (<i>ca.</i> 1955)</h4> </div> <p class='white'> “AWAKENING. It's six in the morning. The great capitol stretches and, even in the mist and fog, the nerves jump, the passions awaken. Activity begins to beat on all sides of the city. The first buses cross the avenues and the street sweeper, eternal early bird, is almost at the end of his hygienic task, “Un día cualquiera en la vida de la ciudad” (Any day in the life of the city). </p> <div class='col-12 m-0'> <a href='' target='_blank' class='btn-ObjetoDigital'>Digital resource</a> </div> <div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'><i>A man and his pig</i> (<i>ca.</i> 1955)</h4> </div> <p class='white'> “He goes to market to sell a fat and comfort-loving pig, like those in Cri-Cri's songs. Ignorant of his fate, the animal meanwhile enjoys the tour of the capitol's streets in his special coach. This spectacle is exclusive of Mexico.” “Un día cualquiera en la vida de la ciudad”. </p> <div class='col-12 m-0'> <a href='' target='_blank' class='btn-ObjetoDigital'>Digital resource</a> </div> <div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'><i>Two women with very different lives</i> (<i>ca.</i> 1958)</h4> </div> <p class='white'> Two women wait in line to pay in a supermarket. The woman in front is light skinned, well dressed, and obviously better off than the woman standing behind her, a <i>mestiza</i> servant dressed in the apron common to her class. <br> <br> In a text written some years after, Nacho affirmed that, “To photography corresponds, among other tasks, that of denouncing contradictions.” Nonetheless, in two of the photoessays composed about Mexico City, “Un día cualquiera en la vida de la ciudad” y “Las mil caras de la ciudad: el lente de Nacho López” (The city’s thousand faces: Nacho López’s lens), the cutlines show the women as equal. In “Mil caras”, it alleges that, “The daily domestic chores tire both those who carry them out for their own house as well as those who do it professionally.” The cutline of the photo in “Un día cualquiera” goes even further in disappearing class difference: <br><br> “<span class='ps-4'><span class='versalitas'>equals</span>. Fat and thin, ugly and pretty, rich and poor, servants and bosses are the same at the hour of market. Identical in the search for the cheapest item of the best quality; similar at the time of paying and totally alike in the bargaining that has disappeared in the so-called supermarkets.”</span> </p> <div class='col-12 m-0'> <a href='' target='_blank' class='btn-ObjetoDigital'>Digital resource</a> </div> <div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'><i>Carrying chickens</i> (<i>ca.</i> 1960)</h4> </div> <p class='white'> At times, the texts of photos published in the magazines demonstrate a contradiction with his political position. However, he was capable of capturing the indomitable Mexican spirit, incarnated here with a market carrier submerged in a mountain of chickens who, nonetheless, carries on with the dignity of the humble that Nacho always looked to point out. </p> <div class='col-12 m-0'> <a href='' target='_blank' class='btn-ObjetoDigital'>Digital resource</a> </div> <div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'><i>Drunk</i> (<i>ca.</i> 1953)</h4> </div> <p class='white'> “<span class='versalitas'>yeah, and so what?</span> A Mexican expression. The challenging gesture--a friendly challenge--and the word of the <i>muy macho</i>. But don’t think that this gesture is only seen in the cantina, “Las Glorias de Gaona”. But also in the most exclusive bars, where in place of <i>pulque</i> they drink whisky and soda at two o’clock.” “México acostumbra echarse una copa a las dos de la tarde...” (Mexico is used to having a drink at two in the afternoon). </p> <div class='col-12 m-0'> <a href='' target='_blank' class='btn-ObjetoDigital'>Digital resource</a> </div> <div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'><i>Drinking pulque</i> (1950)</h4> </div> <p class='white'> The fascination that Nacho had for “the sacred and the profane” led him to focus on the celebration of the Virgin of Guadalupe in his photoreportaje, “Virgen India”. As the reportage advances, he increasingly introduces the theme of the humble, which form a sharp contrast to the opulence of the church in the first pages. </p> <div class='col-12 m-0'> <a href='' target='_blank' class='btn-ObjetoDigital'>Digital resource</a> </div> <div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'><i>Eating tacos</i> (1950)</h4> </div> <p class='white'> In the last pair of pages he represents the mundane of this rite in images of people eating and drinking, “The profane but necessary. Perhaps a negation of the spiritual but an absolute confirmation of the inescapably vital.” </p> <div class='col-12 m-0'> <a href='' target='_blank' class='btn-ObjetoDigital'>Digital resource</a> </div> <div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'><i>The queen</i> (1950)</h4> </div> <p class='white'> López irony was displayed in this reportage with an image of a woman breastfeeding her baby -“secular lactations of Indian sorrow”- underneath a poster announcing the contest for the Queen of the barrio Estrella. </p> <div class='col-12 m-0'> <a href='' target='_blank' class='btn-ObjetoDigital'>Digital resource</a> </div> <div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'><i>The Virgin</i> (1950)</h4> </div> <p class='white'> In “Virgen India” López reflected graphically on the act of photographing this nationalist symbol. Among the pictures he took is one of a couple standing in front of the Virgin's image, in which López included the photographer who is making their souvenir. In the backdrop provided for taking portraits of visitors to the Basilica of Guadalupe, we see the use of prefabricated symbols to instill official identity. But, by incorporating the photographer, Nacho's image goes beyond a simple censure of kitsch. He pointed to the responsibility of photography in fomenting a reverential, homogeneous and exclusive nationalism that weighed heavily on the Mexican soul. Obviously, his own photographic act demonstrated the possibility of using this art in alternative ways. </p> <div class='col-12 m-0'> <a href='' target='_blank' class='btn-ObjetoDigital'>Digital resource</a> </div>
<div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'>The indigenous</h4> </div> <p class='white'> Nacho López produced few photoessays or reportages about indigenous people for the illustrated magazines. As he moved on from photojournalism, he worked for the Instituto Nacional Indigenista (National Indigenist Institute), photographing various Amerindian cultures, among them, Tzeltales, Tzotziles, Mixes, Coras, Huicholes, Tarahumaras (Rarámuris), and Chontales. Nevertheless, he recognized his limitations, “I have rarely stayed for any length of time in the communities. For that reason, my photographic vision has fallen short.” In spite of that, he clearly attempted to avoid the picturesque, affirming that “the folkloric is easy”, and that he hoped that his images were “free of any folklorism.” </p> <div class='col-12 m-0'> </div> <div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'><i>Janitzio</i> (1950)</h4> </div> <p class='white'> The dominant tradition of Indianist imagery was (and often still is) that of representing Indians as passive but dignified victims, and López conformed to this convention in his first photoreportage for the magazines, “Noche de muertos.” The tone of resignation and stoicism is projected through high-angle images, with López focusing from above on women whose “impassive faces show no sentiments.”. The angle that López utilized throughout the essay is instrumental in converting the Amerindians into victims: ten of the fifteen published images are taken from above, with the photographer (and his readers) looking down upon them. The use of this angle is particularly reproachable in light of the fact that he was utilizing a Rolleiflex camera, which he held at the level of his waist. Had he been using a 35mm camera, which is raised to the eye, the angle would have been more understandable. That he chose to photograph from such a high angle can only be understood as an expressive decision indicative of his perspective toward the indigenous. </p> <div class='col-12 m-0'> <a href='' target='_blank' class='btn-ObjetoDigital'>Digital resource</a> </div> <div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'><i>Funeral</i> (1951)</h4> </div> <p class='white'> Around a year and a half later, López published his only other important photoessay on indigenous campesinos during this period, “Ante el umbral del silencio” (On the threshold of silence).It deals with a burial in Villa de Ayala, a town in the state of Morelos: “A Mexican funeral, a ritual in which are interwoven the pagan and the Christian, the profound and the sacred.” His use of angles to portray Amerindians is quite different from that of “Noche”: of the 13 photos published, six were taken from a low angle. The development of Nacho López’s consciousness about photographing the native cultures is clearly revealed in comparing these two works. </p> <div class='col-12 m-0'> <a href='' target='_blank' class='btn-ObjetoDigital'>Digital resource</a> </div> <div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'><i>Mixe in movement</i></h4> </div> <p class='white'> Finding ways to empower indigenous people was the main aesthetic strategy that López employed to keep away from exoticism. In part, he utilized angles to give them force within the image. Infusing photos with movement within the frame is another way that López empowered Amerindians. Rather than being quiet and resigned, the indigenous in some of López’s images are active and captured in the act of moving. For example, a Mixe woman wraps her rebozo quickly around her, while her children (or grandchildren) look on. Her soiled clothing and snaggle-toothed, less-than-perfect features are important in working against picturesqueness, which is more than offset by her dynamism, and the adoration of her offspring. </p> <div class='col-12 m-0'> <a href='' target='_blank' class='btn-ObjetoDigital'>Digital resource</a> </div> <div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'><i>Coras</i></h4> </div> <div class='col-12'> <p class='white'> This image of Coras emphasizes interaction among equals and energy by catching them in midstride. </p> </div> <div class='col-12 m-0'> <a href='' target='_blank' class='btn-ObjetoDigital'>Digital resource</a> </div> <div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'><i>Couple</i></h4> </div> <p class='white'> Another tactic was to develop rapport -- that delicate, if difficult to describe, relation between photographer and photographed; I believe that this relationship is probably the primary mediation of documentary photography. Here, the personal relations that López had established with the indigenous are apparent in their interaction with the photographer, at whom they smile trustingly. </p> <div class='col-12 m-0'> <a href='' target='_blank' class='btn-ObjetoDigital'>Digital resource</a> </div> <div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'><i>Resistance</i></h4> </div> <p class='white'> He also documented indigenous resistance in a protest of Mixes against the cacicazgo (boss rule) of Maclovio de León Sánchez in Ocotal, Oaxaca in 1979, who accused him of “theft, armed robbery, and murder.” Despite the empathy expressed by López in documenting this movement, this photograph is strangely dissonant with that position. Although it is made dynamic by the speaker’s moving hand, the image is nonetheless bifurcated: a cord divides the man speaking from the others, a perception underlined by the fact that the man on the right looks away from the speaker. </p> <div class='col-12 m-0'> <a href='' target='_blank' class='btn-ObjetoDigital'>Digital resource</a> </div> <div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'><i>Cora and his headdress</i> </h4> </div> <div class='col-12'> <p class='white'> Documenting the uniqueness of the Amerindian cultures, in this case the headdress of a Cora, was an important contribution of López. </p> </div> <div class='col-12 m-0'> <a href='' target='_blank' class='btn-ObjetoDigital'>Digital resource</a> </div> <div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'><i>Backlighting</i></h4> </div> <div class='col-12'> <p class='white'> Nacho always looked to link information with expressivity, as he does in this play with backlighting. </p> </div> <div class='col-12 m-0'> <a href='' target='_blank' class='btn-ObjetoDigital'>Digital resource</a> </div>
<div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'>Directed photos</h4> </div> <p class='white'> A consummated experimentalist in the visual arts, Nacho López is the Mexican maestro of directed photography, a photojournalist genre that is characterized by the intervention of the photographer in the scene. Although it would seem that the act of directing is anathema to photojournalism or documentary photography, many of its most famous images are products of this complex practice. I believe that at least fifty percent of Nacho’s photographs published in the illustrated magazines were in some way directed by him. </p> <div class='col-12 m-0'> </div> <div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'><i>Campesino reading a piece of newspaper</i> (1949)</h4> </div> <p class='white'> One of the most powerful photos directed by Nacho has been reproduced time and again in Mexican books and magazines up to the present; evidently it strikes a deep chord in the nation’s psyche. The photograph is of a “Campesino reading a piece of newspaper, 1949,” according to the description which López wrote on the envelope that contains the four negatives he saved of the scene. The collaboration of photographer and photographed resulted in a complex image whose iconographic elements are rooted in a period during which Mexicans were transformed by rural beings to city dwellers. </p> <div class='col-12 m-0'> <a href='' target='_blank' class='btn-ObjetoDigital'>Digital resource</a> </div> <div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'><i>Venus in a cantina</i> (1953)</h4> </div> <p class='white'> One of Nacho López's most famous photos is an exploration in directed photography. It originally appeared in the photoessay, “La venus se fue de juerga por los barrios bajos” “(Venus went partying in the poor quarters).” The confrontation of three seemingly incongruous elements--mannequin, messenger, torero -- uses the heterogeneous relations between them for ends that are not easy to describe, yet seem somehow meaningful. </p> <div class='col-12 m-0'> <a href='' target='_blank' class='btn-ObjetoDigital'>Digital resource</a> </div> <div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'><i>Venus in the street</i> (1953)</h4> </div> <p class='white'> López’s goal in this photoessay was to produce reactions with what might be described as a “catalyst”, as he had done previously with the actress, Mati Huitrón, in the photoessay, “Cuando una mujer guapa parte plaza por Madero” (When a beautiful woman provokes admiration on Madero Avenue). He would then capture the reaction, as opposed to actually directing the scene. He wrote, “I think that this reportage can serve as an example of the result of a “previsualization” based on anticipating the human reactions provoked by objects, gestures, or sensations.” The most successful photo in this essay is that of the old woman who stares at the man and his mannequin with evident disdain. </p> <div class='col-12 m-0'> <a href='' target='_blank' class='btn-ObjetoDigital'>Digital resource</a> </div> <div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'><i>A poor man drinking a beer</i> (1953)</h4> </div> <p class='white'> In making the photoessay, “México acostumbra echarse una copa a las dos de la tarde,” Nacho López did not intervene in the photographic act to the extent that he had in other setups. However, he evidently worked closely with the poor here, for at least three negatives survive of this man. He obviously posed willingly for him, no doubt in exchange for the beers he imbibes, and the pay he may have received. In spite of the power of some of the photos, the text and cutlines are problematic because they hide the class differences that are clearly revealed in the images, for example, “There are no differences of social classes or economic conditions for this ancient custom. If the rich drink their ‘high-balls’ or their ‘martinis’ in elegant bars, the poor also savor their tequilas with lime or, at the very least, a well-chilled beer.” I would conclude that the politics of the essay were such that it made López uncomfortable, and for that reason he did not sign it. <br> <br> Years later, Nacho reflected on his experiences in the magazines: “It has been said that photography can lie. What lies are the texts that accompany them, and the mutilation of scissors that isolate the theme from its context. The Director, the editor, and the printers all intervene, modifying insolent images;” and “When the aristocratic world is photographed with an attitude considered to be unrespectful, the media, which is couple with economic power, avoids publishing those images. The lumpen is publishable; the ‘good’ people only appear according to the interests intertwined with the media they control.” </p> <div class='col-12 m-0'> <a href='' target='_blank' class='btn-ObjetoDigital'>Digital resource</a> </div> <div class='col-12 px-3 sub-container' style='display: grid;'> <hr class='barra-trasera m-0 yellow' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'> <h4 class='white' style='grid-area: 1 / 1 / 2 / 2;'><i>The measure of a man</i> (<i>ca.</i>1955)</h4> </div> <p class='white'> It is clear that direction – whether that be a constructed or provoked event, as opposed to a scene discovered – is a crucial element in the work of Nacho. Does the image have less of an impact upon knowing that it is to some degree the result of the photographer’s direction? To what point are we prisoners of the metaphysic of the “decisive moment” of Henri Cartier-Bresson in the degree to which we believe that the unique capacity of the camera is the possibility of capturing those fragments of a second in an act that is open to and at the mercy of fate, and almost never the photographer’s intervention? The black humor demonstrated in this scene of a man posing in front of everyone’s future illustrates Nacho’s search to create existentialist juxtapositions. </p> <div class='col-12 m-0'> <a href='' target='_blank' class='btn-ObjetoDigital'>Digital resource</a> </div>

Legacy

In the period between 1976 and 1985, Nacho taught photography in the Universidad Veracruzana, Xalapa, and the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (unam), where he formed several of currently-practicing photojournalists, and was the principle maestro of the movement I have described as the Nuevo Fotoperiodismo Mexicano (New Photojournalism of Mexico). He asserted that:

If a photograph contain only one meaning, it is a document; if it encompasses the contradictions of reality without including one’s own reasoning, it is a narrative; if it synthesizes the two previous factors and, moreover, a reality interpreted with the brain and eye, it is a testimony, and perhaps a work of art.

López wanted to bring about greater respect for photography: "Not so that we can be famous and praised, but to be able to live from the photography through which we realize ourselves.” Hence, he insisted in integrating photography into a photographer’s life, and offered an example of how photojournalism can offer an alternative to the alienation suffered by those for whom it is just another job, those for whom the camera is only a tool that is abandoned at the end of the work day. In the words of Guillermo Castrejón: "For Nacho, photography was part of life, and he showed me how to integrate it into daily life. From then on i understood what photography was, and what it served for.

Elsa Medina described his influence more succinctly: "Nacho taught me to see.”

Curatorship

John Mraz

Bio

John Mraz
Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades
Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla

John Mraz is Research Professor Emeritus at the icsyh-buap and National Researcher Emeritus. He has published more than 250 articles, book chapters, and essays in Europe, Latin America, and the United States on the uses of modern media in recounting history. Among his recent books are History and Modern Media: A Personal Journey; Photographing the Mexican Revolution: Commitments, Testimonies, Icons; Looking for Mexico: Modern Visual Culture and National Identity; and Nacho López, Mexican Photographer. He has directed award-winning documentaries, and curated many international photographic exhibits. His most recent documentary, Julio Mayo: Bracero with a Camera, and exhibit, Braceros, Photographed by the Hermanos Mayo, is currently circulating in U.S. universities and has been viewed by more than 140,000 visitors.

General bibliography

Mraz, John, Nacho López y el fotoperiodismo mexicano en los años cincuenta, México, Editorial Océano / inah, 1999.

_________, Nacho López, Mexican Photographer, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2003.

Nacho López, fotógrafo de México, Homenaje, México, inba / Museo de Bellas Artes, 2016.

Revista Luna Córnea, núm. 31, Secretaría de Cultura, Centro de la Imagen, 2007.

Rodríguez, José Antonio y Alberto Tovalín Ahumada (eds.), Nacho López, ideas y visualidad, México, inah / sinafo / Universidad Veracruzana / Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2012.