Miradas: Contemporary Mexican Photographers

Ruth Prieto Arenas opens a window into the lives of Mexican immigrant women in New York City, where they are masters of their own world, where they control their time and their choices, where they have a safe haven. Chuy Benitez’s panoramic photographs capture Houston’s vibrant Mexican American community at a moment in which migration has led to its explosive growth. Fernando Brito’s images of bodies dumped in the countryside of Sinaloa by drug cartels, taken while on assignment for El Debate newspaper, bring home the tragedy created in Mexico by the United States’ insatiable drug consumption. Alejandro Cartagena has spent much of the last decade examining the Mexico/US relationship–mostly along the border–in various documentary photo series, including Suburbia Mexicana, Between Borders and The Car Poolers.

Mauricio Palos works between Mexico and the United States, looking at the cultural and political influences and the clashes created by the two countries’ complex relationship. From spring break in Cancun to Detroit’s bleak streets, Palos’ photos brilliantly highlight the historical contradictions within the US-Mexico relationship. In Palos’ photos, as in the others shown in the this exhibition, the gaze is not at a Mexico defined by the US, but at Mexicans exploring and defining themselves as they navigate the Mexican and Mexican-American experience today.