“The photography of Manuel Alvarez Bravo is Mexican by cause, form and content, anguish is omnipresent and the atmosphere is supersaturated with irony.”

— Diego Rivera

        Manuel Alvarez Bravo came of age at a time when 800 wealthy families held all the land in Mexico. And 7 million rural laborers worked the fields. He was 8 years old when the revolution that deposed Porfirio Diaz broke out in 1910 — an insurrection that would claim more than a million lives.

IF YOU GO

What: How Small the World Is: Selected Photographs By Manuel Alvarez Bravo     When: Saturday-Oct. 28; hours: 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday (to 9 p.m. Wednesday), 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday, noon-6 p.m. Sunday     Where: Cincinnati Art Museum, Eden Park     Admission: $5, $4 seniors/college students, children 17 and under free. Saturday free to all.

        In the decade after the war, he became part of an artistic and intellectual renaissance that flourished in Mexico City. Armed with a passion for portraying the lives of his countrymen and inspired by the European surrealists and American avant-garde, he developed an unmatched visual poetry in which the mundane became the basis for fantastic allegory.

        For eight decades, Mr. Alvarez Bravo suffused his artistic and socially relevant photographs with equal parts surrealism, eroticism and indigenous pride. In February he turned 100 years old. He is the last living link to the Mexican avant-garde.

        The Cincinnati Art Museum celebrates his birthday beginning Saturday with an exhibition of 16 of his black and white photographs. How Small the World Is: Selected Photographs By Manuel Alvarez Bravo contains images from the 1930s to 1970s and provides a synopsis of his career and exquisite examples of landscapes and portraits.

        “We haven't done a show since the '30s which has showcased the work of Latin American artists,” says Kristin Spangenberg the show's curator. “This is an opportunity to see a great body of work.”

        Indeed the work is exceptional. ""Day of the Dead” (1933) is a wonderful example of Mr. Alvarez Bravo's ability to apply layers of meaning to his work. In this portrait of a modern woman we find ourselves unsettled by her holding a life-sized skull. She wears a cross, and the skull, carved out of sugar, bears the legend “amor.” The juxtaposition of life and death is powerful and one Mr. Alvarez Bravo has said represents the real feeling of Mexican duality.

        “He was an insightful photographer,” Ms. Spangenberg says. “I find him fascinating. Some of his works are like dreams — surrealistic portrayals of death or the erotic. He really straddles the line between art and documentation.”

        “How Small the World,” a 1942 photograph, as well as the name of the show, reveals a chance encounter between a man and woman on a city street. Behind them a wall keeps the world away while at the same time a line of laundry lets us know others are close by. It is characteristic of Mr. Alvarez Bravo's idea of distinct realities existing side by side. For one fleeting moment, captured on film, the worlds collide.

        ""Window on the Agaves” (1976) depicting the menacing tentacles of a cacti overshadowing a simple home further exemplifies the photographer's use of opposites to create a moment in time, distinct from narrative.

        Mr. Alvarez Bravo continues to work in his studio. And continues to live in the suburb where he was born. Near the end of his life, he is still making pictures adding to a portfolio that transcends time.
       
       

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