This summary provides an overview of an exhibition at Aperture featuring the work of contemporary Mexican and Mexican-American photographers commemorating Mexico's bicentennial of independence. It highlights works by Monica Ruzansky, Dulce Pinzon, and Chuy Benitez. Ruzansky's photos capture nighttime scenes in Mexico City from her car at night. Pinzon's "Superheroes" series depicts working immigrants in New York dressed as superheroes to honor their contributions. Benitez uses panoramic photos to document Hispanic communities in the American Southwest, influenced by Mexican mural art. The exhibition celebrates Mexican culture and highlights experiences navigating borders and dual identities.

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SEPTEMBER 30, 2010
Mexico + Afuera, at Aperture
BY MARIA LOKKE
This month marks the bicentennial of Mexico’s independence, and Aperture
(http://www.aperture.org/)’s current exhibition commemorates the season accordingly.
The historic “Paul Strand in Mexico (http://www.aperture.org/gallery/)” exhibition,
located in the main gallery and featuring over a hundred photographic works, including
vintage prints, shares the floor with En Foco (http://www.enfoco.org/)’s “Mexico +
Afuera: Contemporary Mexican and Mexican-American Voices
(http://www.aperture.org/events/detail.php?id=691).” The latter provides a fresh
counterpart to the classic Strand photos, showcasing the work of contemporary
photographers Monica Ruzansky
(http://www.monicaruzansky.com/Monica_Ruzansky/news___photos.html), Chuy
Benitez (http://www.chuybenitez.com/) and Dulce Pinzon
(http://www.dulcepinzon.com/), along with selections from En Foco’s permanent
collection.
I loved Monica Ruzansky’s furtive and romantic snapshots of Mexico City nightscapes,
taken by the light of her car headlights over the course of two years. Flashes of legs clad
in white stockings, a couple caught kissing on a curbside, or a blurry watchdog are seen
from the vantage point of a car ambling through the late-night streets. In an e-mail,
Ruzansky explained that this project was inspired by the countless hours she spent
traversing the vast expanse of Mexico City: “I felt as if the car was an extension of my
body.” Driving at night, the theatrical focus of the lights transformed the city into a stage,
the resulting images becoming “fragments of stories to which we are tempted to imagine
a beginning and an end.”
In Dulce Pinzon’s “Superheroes” series, costumes are superimposed on working-class
Mexicans in New York: cooks, nannies, construction workers.These satirical scenes
question modern heroism and bring into focus the vital role these individuals play in the
lives of their families and in the economy of the larger community, on both sides of the
border. She made these pictures, she writes, “to pay homage to these brave and
determined men and women that somehow manage, without the help of any
supernatural power, to withstand extreme conditions of labor in order to help their
families and communities survive and prosper.”
The Houston-based photographer Chuy Benitez uses a panoramic format to document
Hispanic communities in the American Southwest. His wide and lively compositions are
influenced by the public art of his hometown of El Paso; the vivid storylines of his
panoramas recall Rivera-style Mexican murals. Scenes of chrome shops, piano lessons,

2. panoramas recall Rivera-style Mexican murals. Scenes of chrome shops, piano lessons,
and lowrider trikes create a fresh space for emerging cultural trends and within the legacy
of Hispanic visual culture.Today, Chuy spoke to me about the first- and second-
generation Mexicans that inhabit these hybrid environments, and his experience growing
up between the cities of El Paso and Juarez. “Gone are the days of losing one culture for
another,” Chuy says.Taking a step back from Chuy’s work one can see this theme writ
large; echoed in all the work is a remarkable ability to connect disparate geographies.
Here’s a selection.
“Hey Baby” (“Oye Baby”), from the series “De Noche” (“At Night”), by Monica Ruzansky,
2006.
Top image: “The Moment Before” (“El Momento Antes”), from the series “De Noche” (“At
Night”), by Monica Ruzansky, 2006.
MARIA LOKKE
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