Structures of Identity
Photography from The Walther Collection
Museo Amparo, Puebla
10/21/2017 — 2/5/2018
Museo Amparo, Puebla
10/21/2017 — 2/5/2018
Structures of Identity examines how photographers across a range of cultures and historical periods have used portraiture to affirm or challenge social stereotypes constructed around notions of race, gender, class, and nationality. This exhibition includes series and sequences made by artists from Europe, the United States, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. These efforts reflect a precise and widespread practice of using portraiture within a larger classificatory grid, whose images document the ways that visual forms and archival structures inform social attitudes.
Structures of Identity is a traveling exhibition representing an expansive cross-section of The Walther Collection. It originated in 2017 for a presentation at AIPAD and is tailored to each additional venue, maintaining the same curatorial framework.
Emphasizing the work of artists—and sitters—who use portraiture to subvert visual expectations, and challenge markers of identification, Structures of Identity questions notions of a stable, authentic self. The exhibition shows how some photographers and their subjects have capitalized on the power of photographic portraiture to explore changing notions of gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity.
Structures of Identity deploys an approach that highlights the different ways that subjectivity and social identity are shaped and regarded within the history of the photographic medium, and illustrates the constant efforts of The Walther Collection to discuss and consider the history of photography beyond conventional temporal, cultural, and geographic boundaries.
Museo Amparo is a private art institution founded in 1991, committed to the preservation, research, and display of pre-Columbian, colonial, modern, and contemporary Mexican art. Housed in an 18th-century Baroque hospital, its collection of pre-Columbian and colonial Mexican art is considered one of the most important in Mexico. It maintains an ongoing program of temporary exhibitions of Mexican and international art, as well as a series of academic, artistic, and educational activities for all age groups.
Museo Amparo
2 Sur 708, Centro Histórico
72000 Puebla, Pue.
Mexico
+52 (222) 229 3850
museoamparo.com
