17/04/2018
If the exhibition Jesús H. Abitia. Architecture and History Memory and Imagery, unties the expected repercussions and is taken as a starting point for the vindication of this photographer of the Mexican Revolution and the post-revolution, Abitia will soon be able to be mentioned alongside creators of the nationalist era like Manuel Alvarez Bravo, in photography, or Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros in painting.
A kind of "exhumation" of Abitia (Batuchic, Chihuahua, 1881-Mexico City, 1960) has happened with the location of part of his photographic archive in the hands of a private collector, who with the condition of remaining anonymous facilitated for an investigation that lasted nine months, which resulted in that exhibition that opens today at 7:30 pm at the National Museum of Architecture of the Palace of Fine Arts and will conclude on April 3.
First follower of Madero, whom he photographed and hosted at his home in Hermosillo, and after Obregón, with whom he went to primary school and resigned in full armed struggle, Abitia's cinematographic and cinematographic work comprises three main themes:
The Mexican Revolution, popular culture - with anonymous or famous characters such as Tin Tan or Tongolele - and the urban landscape of Mexico and other cities of the country, which spans from 1911 to 1950 and from where the exhibition begins.
After the death of Abitia - also an instumentalist and inventor of string instruments, explorer of sound 13 , along with Julian Carrillo, and violinist - his collection and photographic studio passed into the hands of his son, named after his father.
But after the death of his son, in 1997, the family decided to sell enough that was still left after the two fires that affected the pair of studies that Abitia kept alive and that caused irreparable losses of photographies and film material.
The Carmen Toscano Foundation bought the material on the Mexican Revolution and a part of the popular culture, and the anonymous collector, the remaining part and all of the architecture.
Closeness with power
The photographs and other materials that this collector provided to the Directorate of Architecture and Conservation of the Artistic Heritage of the INBA were around 350, of which a hundred were selected, among which are images of the Monument to the Revolution, from the Palace de Fine Arts or panoramic views of Mexico City, 10 of them enlarged to large format.
According to information from the museum, Abitia, '' resurfacing his status as a veteran revolutionary, managed to consolidate his career close to the owners of power and continued to register what they wanted to be printed as a legacy of the political and social movement that they claimed to embody.
"The vast work of reconstruction, of adapting old buildings to recent needs, of installing material infrastructure, or of building modern buildings for use and glory of the 'new regime' constituted, of course, a seam as attractive as it is abundant. for Abitia. "
The exhibition also includes objects such as the camera and the 30-30 rifle that Abitia used during the military campaigns alongside Obregón, as well as photographs by the documentary maker himself. In one area of the exhibition, which will consist of four chapters, the documentary film Epopeyas de la Revolución will also be screened.
In all this "exhumation" of Jesus H. Abitia, as it was called by Xavier Guzmán, head of the Architecture Department of the INBA, the research of historians Carlos Silva and Luis Moguel, who reconstructed the life and work of the considered documentalist, stands out. "official" of Alvaro Obregón and the first revolutionary regimes.
During the announcement of the exhibition, yesterday, it was announced that a catalog of the exhibition is being prepared with texts by authors such as Vicente Leñero and Carlos Monsiváis.
