Manuel Álvarez Bravo: Pedregal

A collection of never-before-seen photographs from the Manuel Álvarez Bravo Archive that document a storied neighborhood in Mexico CityPublished with Gato Negro Ediciones/Archivo Manuel Álvarez Bravo.The self-taught Mexican photographer Manuel Álvarez Bravo (1902–2002) is widely regarded as a giant of 20th-century photography. Inspired by the Surrealists’ penchant for unexpected relationships found among objects, Bravo’s photographs thematically engage with death and mortality through symbolic images of daily life.Pedregal showcases never-before-published photographs from the Manuel Álvarez Bravo Archive. Twenty years after its founding, the ArcMAB continues to promote new interpretations of its holdings and keeps its doors open to researchers and curators interested in engaging with Bravo’s work. The selection presented here highlights the photographer’s vision of Pedregal, a historic neighborhood in the south of Mexico City. In these images, volcanic stone becomes a territory where memory, modernity and future intertwine, and the monumental coexists with the intimate, revealing the vital force that emerges within a rugged landscape. Supplementing Bravo’s photographs are documentary materials related to the neighborhood’s development and evolution, such as the construction of Ciudad Universitaria. Pedregal, then, presents a view of the territory that is both personal and collective, fantastical and grounded.