An exhibition on Tina Modotti in Ravenna, with fifty works

From Dec. 17, 2021 to Feb. 20, 2022, Palazzo Rasponi in Ravenna will host an exhibition dedicated to photographer Tina Modotti (Udine, 1896 - Mexico City, 1942), one of the protagonists of the great adventure of photography in the early part of the 20th century. Curated by Silvia Camporesi and the Tina Modotti Committee, the exhibition, titled Tina Modotti - The Human Fervor, was created as an in-depth work and research on contemporary photography that the Ravenna Municipality’s Youth Policies Department (which chose Tina Modotti as a symbol of thought and practice of a language that intercepted most of the most intense and painful moments of the last century) began in 2016, in collaboration with the School of Cultural Heritage of the University of Bologna - Ravenna campus.

The exhibition presents a nucleus of about fifty works documenting Modotti’s path, which was short and at the same time rich in extraordinary works. It starts from the famous Calle of 1924 and the production born from the association with Edward Weston to the ’epos of the humble, crossing the images collected in the painful and wonderful Mexico of the children, men and women of Tehuantepec, in the midst of a beautiful and heartbreaking humanity. The exhibit also includes portraits taken by Edward Weston, biographical documents, testimonies, autograph writings and reflections that restore the profile of a total artist, transparent and dazzling in her insights, unmistakable talent and profound punctuality of gaze, grafted into the heart of the beauty and cruelty of the world.

Tina Modotti left the indelible trace of an identity in which art and existence, beauty and passion, earth, body, sky and dust were intertwined. The distance of time now allows a free look at the production of this revolutionary artist/militant, moving away from the stereotype that, accompanied by romanticized declinations, has often overshadowed her quality as an artist, the extraordinary ethical and at the same time aesthetic dimension of her work.

“Tina Modotti’s artistic profile,” says Youth Policy Councillor Fabio Sbaraglia, “is certainly among the most intense among those of the first half of the 20th century; in just seven years of activity Modotti left a body of work that has traced a deep furrow in theart and in the collective consciousness; she was a worker, an artist, a theater and film actress, an activist in International Red Relief, a militant and revolutionary, a woman capable of affirming an extraordinary, profound identity connected with some of the most crucial and dramatic moments in the history of the last century: the Mexican Revolution, the Spanish War, Stalin’s Russia, the Europe on which the long black shadow of World War II was cast. But above all, Tina was a great photographer, strained between the narrative necessary to enter reality, in its incandescent beauty, without superstructures and aesthetic complacency, and the existential and total urgency to change the world.”

The exhibition is open for free admission Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. (Dec. 24 and 31 mornings only, Dec. 25, 26 and Jan. 6 closed). In addition, a number of side events are planned as part of the exhibition. On Saturday, Dec. 18 at 5 p.m. at the D’Attorre Hall of Casa Melandri is scheduled the lectio magistralis “Tina Modotti - L’umano fervore,” by Silvia Camporesi with the participation of Marì Domini, president of the Tina Modotti Committee. On January 5, on the other hand, again at 5 p.m. at the D’Attorre Hall, there will be a meeting with Professor Claudio Natoli on the occasion of the philatelic cancellation issued for the 70th anniversary of Tina Modotti’s death. Also scheduled between January and February are a workshop on analog photography with an analysis of analog photographic techniques (in relation to the exhibited works of Tina Modotti) and subsequent demonstration of the practical use of darkroom printing, which will be conducted in collaboration with the Faenza-based Fototeca Manfrediana association; and a cineforum with screenings of films pertaining to the historical context in which the figure of Tina Modotti is placed (post-revolutionary Mexico). The schedule for these two initiatives is being finalized.

Image: Tina Modotti, Woman with Flag, detail (1928)

An exhibition on Tina Modotti in Ravenna, with fifty works

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