Luces y Sombras: Mexican Photography from the Bank of America Collection

Capturing modern Mexico’s culture, architecture, and people through photographs, Luces y Sombras presents over one hundred works dating from the 1930s to the present day. Portraits of artists such as Frida Kahlo—by acclaimed photographer Manuel Álvarez Bravo—and photographs of indigenous cultures by Manuel Carrillo and Graciela Iturbide are presented alongside contemporary photographs exploring the body, identity, and place.
 
The photographs in Luces y Sombras reflect a broad span of Mexico’s modern history, beginning with the post-Revolutionary era up until the present day. With work by 28 photographers, both native Mexicans and foreigners, this exhibition provides vivid testimony to the character of life in a nation in the throes of reinvention, modernization, and continued change, over the course of the last century. The exhibition reflects many themes embraced by photographers in Mexico: the landscape, urban life, fantasy, and especially among younger generations, gender, and invented situations infused with symbolism. This exhibition is provided by the Bank of America “Art in Our Communities” program.