CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 3/27/2015

New York Times: The Latin Aesthetic, at Home on Any Horizon

Today's New York Times covers a host of stellar exhibitions on Latin American design, architecture and cinematography with books to match. In Latin American Design and Architecture Through the Years, Larry Rohter writes on Moderno: Design for Living in Brazil, Mexico and Venezuela, on view at the America's Society; Latin America in Construction: Architecture 1955-1980, opening at MoMA this weekend; and New Territories: Laboratories for Design, Craft and Art in Latin America, on view at the Museum of Arts and Design.

ABOVE: Jorge Rivas, Banco, 2003, reproduced from New Territories: Laboratories for Design, Craft and Art in Latin America.

ABOVE: Church in Atlantida, 1958, Eladio Dieste, is reproduced from Latin America in Construction: Architecture 1955-1980.

He points out that all three exhibitions "reflect the growing international appreciation of the architect and designer Lina Bo Bardi," whose work is celebrated in a wonderful forthcoming centennial survey on our list.

ABOVE: Exterior view of Bo Bardi's 'House on Stilts' after completion, 1951, is reproduced from Lina Bo Bardi: 100.

Meanwhile, in Gabriel Figueroa: A Cinematographer's Luminous Art, Holland Cotter reviews Under the Mexican Sky, the celebrated Mexican cinematographer's current exhibition at El Museu del Barrio. "Painting with light is one way to define the cinematographer’s task; making the work of directors and actors shine is another. A director tells actors 'go there, do that.' A cinematographer, who is the eye behind the camera, creates a visual atmosphere that can turn even the simplest action into drama. Sometimes an eye develops an atmospheric style so distinctive as to make any film its own.

ABOVE: Image from Suprema Ley, 1936, is reproduced from Gabriel Figueroa: Under the Mexican Sky.

Such was the case with Gabriel Figueroa (1907-97), the Mexican cinematographer who, over a 50-year career, rose from assistant cameraman to cinematic auteur. He collaborated with some of the finest directors and actors of his day and still emerged an international star. In his homeland he was more than just a film.

ABOVE: Still from Enemigos, 1933, reproduced from Gabriel Figueroa: Under the Mexican Sky.

How do you put this particular kind of art across in a museum, art that is as much about time as it is about material, as much about movement, flux, as it is about fixity? “Under the Mexican Sky: Gabriel Figueroa, Art and Film” at El Museo del Barrio gives a persuasive answer. Arranged in a sequence that more or less follows the path of Mr. Figueroa’s career, the show mixes film clips and film stills — pictures that move and others that don’t — with work by several of the great Mexican painters and printmakers of the early 20th century. And it lets the back-and-forth play of influence among very different media tell a story of its own."