Tina Modotti. Donne, Messico e libertà

Catalog of the Milan exhibition at Mudec Photo from May 1 to November 7, 2021

The adventure of art and life of a great woman of the 20th century.

Tina Modotti (Udine 1896 – Mexico City 1942) is not only one of the greatest photographers of the 20th century, but a fascinating character for the many facets of her multifaceted personality. Born into a working-class family in Friuli, she joined her father, who emigrated to the United States in 1913; she moved to Los Angeles in 1918, where she embarked on a film career, but, despite her success, dissatisfied with the way the cinema simply exploited her exotic appeal, she soon left Hollywood, after only three films, and, thanks to her meeting and relationship with Edward Weston, devoted herself to photography, moving with him to Mexico.

Modotti’s parabola as a photographer lasted a decade, enough to make her a star of the first magnitude: she conceived of this activity as a tool in the service of society, while at the same time becoming involved in the Mexican Communist Party. The official photographer of the muralists, she befriended Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, with whom she also had an affair. Expelled from Mexico for her activism, in the latter part of her life Tina becomes an agent of the Communist Party: she will be both in Russia and on the Spanish front during the Civil War.

The exhibition at Mudec will be a key opportunity to see brought together the most beautiful photographs that made Modotti famous, alongside precious archival materials and some of the famous portraits that great photographers such as Weston dedicated to her, thus allowing us to round out Tina’s human as well as artistic adventure.

BY
Biba Giacchetti has been working for 15 years with some of the most famous photographers on the international scene such as Steve McCurry, James Nachtwey, Elliott Erwitt. With Giuseppe Ceroni he founded the Sudest57 agency in 2002, with which he has curated numerous exhibitions and publications in Italy and abroad.