Flor Garduno

Mexican photography is highly esteemed throughout the world. The worldwide fame of recently deceased photographer Manuel Alvarez Bravo clearly contributed to this. In addition, the achievements of an entire range of exceptional Mexican photographers of the last half-century are widely known. Flor Garduno has become one of the country?s most respected photographers. In her work, she focuses on capturing images from the region to which she feels strongly linked, both emotionally and culturally. This region spans the countries of Central and South America, including her native Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Ecuador and Bolivia.

Her project, tellingly titled ?Testigos del tiempo? (Witnesses of Time), produced in the years 1983-1991, constitutes photographic documentation of the lives of people inhabiting areas outside of big cities, people devoted to their everyday rhythm and rituals. Her photographs manifest the artist?s rich sense of form. Garduno?s images record life, religious ceremonies and social events. All of these are seen from a certain distance in photographs that manifest great care for regular and balanced composition. This is true both of her photos of the real world of impoverished people in the provinces and of her images of landscapes, architecture and the rich sub-equatorial natural environment. Garduno accomplishes this through very sophisticated, though spare means, with light and composition playing the dominant role. Flor Garduno?s images have made a permanent place for themselves in the rich tradition of humanistic photography, which at present ? in our age of the aggressive development of technical civilization ? is acquiring special significance through the depth of its content and nobility of form.

Flor Garduno was born in Mexico in 1957. She studied the fine arts at the San Carlos Academy in Mexico and went on to work as Manuel Alvarez Bravo?s assistant for two years. She has been an independent photographer since 1980. Garduno has exhibited frequently at galleries and museums in Mexico and the United States as well as in Europe (Paris, London, Zurich).

Testigos del tiempo has thus far been exhibited at thirty-five museums. These have included the Art Institute of Chicago, the Center of Creative Photography in Tucson, a number of fine arts museums in Mexico, Chile, Argentina, at the Musée de l?Elysee in Lausanne and at the University of Salamanca in Spain.

Pressetext

Flor Garduno TESTIGOS DEL TIEMPO/ WITNESSES OF TIME
Kurator: Marek Grygiel