Exhibition of a selection of 230 photographs

The Museum of America is showing 230 previously unpublished photographs by Català-Roca from today

The Museum of America in Madrid is hosting ‘The eloquence of the image. Català-Roca in America’ from this Friday until April 13, an exhibition that shows a selection of 230 photographs from the more than 7,000 negatives that the Catalan photographer took in America in the 1970s, starting in Mexico in 1973 and ending in Ecuador in 1979.

All the images belong to the personal archive of Francesc Català-Roca (1922-1998) that is kept in the Arxiu Nacional de Catalunya, according to the Ministry of Culture, which is organizing the exhibition.

These trips to America were part of the commission that the publishing house Blume, specialized in books on art, photography and culture, entrusted him with to illustrate catalogues of American popular art. Although the images used in these publications focused on the production of objects, Català-Roca also portrayed the conditions and ways of life of a traditional society in danger of disappearing.

In this sense, Català-Roca captured the landscapes and people of the places he visited, making portraits of their inhabitants, forms of artisanal production, markets, traditions and rituals.

These photographs, printed and projected, are presented in dialogue with a selection of 44 pieces from the collection of the Museum of America, a combination that “allows, through different formats, to accompany Català-Roca on this reconstructed journey in time.” Among them, ceramics, basketry, ornaments, work tools and objects linked to rituals stand out.

Added to all this is the documentation related to the trips and the publication of the popular crafts catalogues edited by Blume, which have been studied by the documentary filmmaker Núria Gil Ros, and which can be seen in the exhibition.

The Culture Department explained that Francesc Català-Roca's photography "is characterized by capturing his social, political and cultural environment, looking at the details of everyday life," and on his trips to America he incorporated the use of color into his technique.

In this case, the protagonists of his snapshots are the people who relate to their environment through their own customs and habits. By getting close to them, he "captures their identity" through everyday life, in a time when Latin America was experiencing profound social changes, showing the social and cultural reality of the subcontinent in the 1970s.

(C) SERVIMEDIA. This information is the property of Servimedia. It can only be disseminated by clients of this news agency citing Servimedia as the author or source. All rights reserved. Distribution and public communication by third parties through any means or medium is prohibited.
Source