THE SHIP. University, 2
La Nau says goodbye to the exhibition season in style, with the most extensive retrospective ever held in Spain of the Argentine photographer Humberto Rivas, a fundamental artist in the renewal movement of Spanish photography of the years 70-80. The tour begins in Argentina, where he was part of a group that claimed the importance of photography as a means of expression beyond the documentary. From this stage is his series Norte, practically unpublished in Spain, made during a trip to the north of Argentina in which he already began to outline some of his recurring themes: the walls were torn down, men crossdressing as women… Precisely in the next part of the exhibition, dedicated to his years in Barcelona, There are the photos of Violeta La Burra, Pedro Moreno by day, night song artist, forming a series that until now had never left the archive. Rivas chose those portrayed according to his personal interest, They are always characters with a powerful look, quirky in some sense, from whom he managed to get all the juice. “The photo does not appear, said, the photo is taken”. The curious thing is that he always captured characters without context or contexts without characters. What were not wonderful still lifes or portraits with a black background and harsh light, They were architectures illuminated by the filtered light of the first or last hours of the day. Corners, closed stores, Facades with gaps in paint and peeling walls conveyed a decay that is nothing more than the passage of time., the trace of memory. Many of these facades, a color, They make up the third part of the sample, which closes with the last snapshots of his career, more experimental and avant-garde. Portraits with a touch of theatricality of full-length women and powerful cross compositions with the body fragmented into several images. S.M.
