Tina Modotti revolutionary internationalist great photographer and a photographer Gerda Taro
TINA MODOTTI, ARTE VITA LIBERTÀ
EMIGRANTE, OPERAIA, ATTRICE, FOTOGRAFA NEL MESSICO DEGLI ANNI VENTI, ANTIFASCISTA, MILITANTE NEL MOVIMENTO COMUNISTA INTERNAZIONALE, PERSEGUITATA ED ESULE POLITICA, GARIBALDINA DI SPAGNA. Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Leather Muscle Building
Nata a Udine il 17 agosto 1896 e deceduta a Città del Messico il 5 gennaio 1942.
Dopo l'improvvisa scomparsa, il riconoscimento della personalità umana, artistica e politica di Tina Modotti fu quasi immediato e per alcuni anni la sua vita e la sua opera restarono vive in buona parte dell'America latina. Poi cadde l'oblio, lungo di almeno trent'anni. Inquietanti cause di questo silenzio/rifiuto si possono trovare nel mondo reazionario, nel provincialismo, nel dilagante moralismo di questo secolo, contrari alla valorizzazione di una donna libera e inserita nel grande filone della cultura laica.
La festa di San Valentino all'inizio
del novecento, in Borgo Pracchiuso
a Udine, dove Tina Modotti nacque
il 17 agosto 1896
L'opera di Tina, che si trova in buona parte negli Stati Uniti, venne tenuta nascosta nei cassetti dei Dipartimenti di fotografia per la nefasta influenza del maccartismo che rese impossibile, per molti anni e non solo in America, lo studio e la presentazione di un'artista che aveva creato immagini di qualità e militato nel movimento comunista internazionale.
Anche la Sinistra storica non è esente da disattenzioni nei riguardi di questa friulana d'eccezione.
Oggi sappiamo che non esiste un artista di qualità e un militante di valore, come Tina Modotti, che sia stato trascurato per così lungo tempo dagli storici della fotografia e dalla storiografia politica. Tutto ciò è avvenuto nonostante le novità e il fascino che caratterizzano la sua avventura umana:la sua complessa esistenza appare, con il solo raccontarla, un romanzo.
Assunta Adelaide Luigia Modotti, detta Tina, nasce nel popolare Borgo Pracchiuso a Udine, da famiglia operaia aderente al socialismo della fine Ottocento. Il padre Giuseppe lavora come meccanico e carpentiere, mentre la madre Assunta Mondini fa la cucitrice.
Medaglione fotografico con la madre Assunta Mondini, in the center and children (clockwise from top): Yolanda, Mercedes, Tina, Welcome, Gioconda, Joseph.
Become immigrant at the age of two years, when the family moved to work in neighboring Austria. In fall 1905 in Udine and Tina attended with great profit the first classes of elementary school. At twelve years to help support the large family (six brothers are), works as a worker in a textile mill. He learned the elements of photography attending the study of his uncle Peter Modotti.
's father decides to leave for the United States, soon joined by nearly all the family. Tina arrives in San Francisco in 1913, where he worked in a textile factory and is a seamstress, attended exhibitions, theater events and follows the dramatic societies in the reads of Little Italy.
During a visit to the Panama-Pacific International Exposition know the poet and painter Roubaix del'Abrie Richey, friends called Robo, which joined in 1917 and moved to Los Angeles. They both love art and poetry, paint with the technique of batik fabrics, and their house becomes a meeting place for artists and liberal intellectuals.
Anonymous, Tina Modotti, S. Francisco ca 1918.
Tina in 1920 is a Hollywood interpretation of The Tiger's Coat, directed by Roy Clement, and later, some secondary parts in two other films, Riding with Death and I can explain. It is an experience disappointing that he decided to leave for too commercial nature of the film suggests. For its beauty and expressiveness is repeated several times by photographers Jane Reece, Johan Hagemayer and, above all by Edward Weston and soon will be born with a love relationship. On February 9, 1922
Robo died of smallpox during a trip to Mexico. Tina arrives in time for the funeral and discovers, in this sad occasion, a country that long for the charm. He returned to San Francisco for the sudden death of his father Joseph. At the end of the year he wrote a biographical tribute in memory of his teammate, to be published in a collection of poems and prose The Book of Robo.
San Francisco, 1920, from left: Robo husband Tina, father Joseph, his sister Mercedes, Joseph Junior said Joe, unidentified, Benvenuto said Beppo and Ben, unidentified, Tina and her mother Assunta, unidentified sister Jolanda
At the end of July 1923 and Tina Modotti Edward Weston (Chandler and his son) arrives in Mexico, settling for two months in the suburb of Tacubaja and, therefore, in the capital. United by a strong love, live within the political and cultural climate post-revolutionary, in contact with the great painters muralists David Alfaro Siqueiros, Diego Rivera and Clemente Orozco, who belong to the Artists' Union and are the founders of the newspaper El Machete, spokesman new culture and, later, the official organ of the Communist Party Mexican.
Contact with the skills and experience of Weston, Tina accelerates learning and of photography in a short time wins expressive autonomy and at the end of 1924 an exhibition of their works was opened at the Palacio de Minera in the presence of the Head of State .
Between 1925 and 1926, in a short time and different, they return to San Francisco, where he meets Tina sick mother, knows the photographer Dorothea Lange, buy a Graflex camera. When they returned to Mexico on a journey of three months in the central regions to collect images for Anita Brenner's book Idols Behind Altars. Their emotional connection deteriorates and Weston finally back in California, the contacts will continue for some years in the form correspondence.
Tina lives with his photography and running a lot of portraits, he joined the painter and activist Xavier Guerrero (who will soon go to Moscow at the Lenin School), joined the Communist Party, working for the Sandinista movement in the Committee "Manos Fuera de Nicaragua" and participate in demonstrations in favor of Sacco and Vanzetti during which met Vittorio Vidali, the Italian revolutionary and member of the Comintern.
Edward Weston, Tina on the roof, Mexico 1924
Tina Modotti, Vittorio Vidali, 1930
Tina turns her way to portray, in a few years along dazzling artistic experience: after the first attention to the nature (roses, streets, pipes di bambù, cactus, ...) sposta l'obiettivo verso forme più dinamiche, quindi utilizza il mezzo fotografico come strumento di indagine e denuncia sociale, e le sue opere, comunque realizzate con equilibrio estetico, assumono di frequente valenza ideologica: esaltazione dei simboli del lavoro, del popolo e del suo riscatto (mani di operai, manifestazioni politiche e sindacali, falce e martello,...). Sue fotografie vengono pubblicate nelle riviste Forma, New Masses, Horizonte. In questo periodo conosce lo scrittore John Dos Passos e l'attrice Dolores Del Rio, ed entra in amicizia con la pittrice Frida Kahlo.
Nel settembre del 1928 diventa la compagna di Julio Antonio Mella, giovane rivoluzionario cubano, con cui Tina vive un amore profondo e al cui fianco intensifica il lavoro di fotografa impegnata e di militante politica.
Edward Weston, Frida Kahlo e Diego Rivera a San Francisco nel 1930
Ma il loro legame dura pochi mesi, perché la sera del 10 gennaio 1929 Mella viene ucciso dai sicari del dittatore di Cuba Gerardo Machado proprio mentre sta rincasando con Tina, che rimane indignata e scossa da questo dramma e deve inoltre subire una campagna scandalistica con cui le forze reazionarie tentano di coprire mandanti ed esecutori del delitto politico. Partecipa alle manifestazioni in ricordo di Mella e, in segno di protesta, rifiuta l'incarico di fotografa ufficiale del Museo nazionale messicano. Si dedica alla militanza e al lavoro fotografico, realizzando un significativo reportage in the region of Tehuantepec. Autonomous University of Mexico City December 3 inaugurates an exhibition of his works, that turns into a revolutionary act for the content and quality of the photographs and the fiery presentation held by the painter Siqueiros. The Mexican Folkways magazine publishes manifesto "Sobre photography" signed by Tina Modotti.
Tina Modotti in addition to his work, University of Mexico City in 1929
Meanwhile, the political climate has changed, the communist organizations are outlawed: February 5, 1930 Tina is unjustly accused of having participated in an attack against the new Head of State, Pasqual Ortiz Rubio was arrested and expelled from Mexico. Embarks on the Dutch steamer Edam, makes the trip to Rotterdam with Vittorio Vidali, and reached Berlin, where he met Bohumir Smeral, founder of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, the writer Egon Erwin Kisch and the photographer Lotte Jacobi in the study of which exhibits the works had brought with him from Mexico. try to resume the photographic work, is in contact with the great news of journalism, especially the popular press Willy Münzerberg: newspapers and periodicals such as the prestigious "Arbeiter - Illustrierte - Zeitung" which published photographs of Tina on several occasions . In October, he decided to leave for Moscow, where the expected Vidali. In the Soviet capital prepares
His last exhibition, works as a translator and a reader of the foreign press, he wrote political pamphlets, obtained citizenship and became a member of the party abandoned photography to devote to involvement in the International Red Aid. Until 1935, lives in Moscow, Warsaw, Vienna, Madrid and Paris, for relief activities to political persecution.
One of the few photographs that you know Tina Modotti in the Soviet Union, Angelo Masutti photo, Moscow, June 13, 1932
In July 1936, when an outbreak of the English Civil War, took on the name of Mary, and is Vittorio Vidali Madrid together with his companion, who becomes Carlos J. Contreras, Command of the Fifth Regiment.
During three years of war, working in hospitals and in the connections, make friends with other fighters such as Maria Luisa Laffite, Flor Cernuda, Fanny Edelman, Maria Luisa Carnelli, is spent on politics and culture: writing the organ of the Red Aid Ayuda in 1937 in Valencia is part of the organization of international congress of intellectuals against fascism and, along with Carlos, promotes the publication of Viento del Pueblo, en war poetry with the works of poet Miguel Hernandez. Had the opportunity to know Robert Capa and Gerda Taro, Hemingway, Antonio Machado, Dolores Ibarruri, Rafael Alberti, Malraux, Norman Bethune and many others in the International Brigades. In 1938 he was among the organizers of Congreso Nacional de la Solidariedad che si tiene a Madrid.
Tina Modotti, Il profilo di Ja. Mella, fotografia pubblicata nel 1932 a Berlino sulla copertina di Arbeitre-Illustrierte-Zeitung
Durante la ritirata, con la Spagna nel cuore, aiuta i profughi che si avviano alla frontiera e si trova in pericolo sotto i bombardamenti. Arriva a Parigi con Vidali. Nonostante sia ricercata dalla polizia fascista, chiede alla sua organizzazione il permesso di trasferirsi in Italia per svolgere attività clandestina, ma le viene negato per la pericolosità della situazione politica.
Maria e Carlos, come tanti altri esuli, rientrano in Messico, dove il nuovo presidente Lazaro Cardenas annulla la precedente espulsione. Conducono Tina lives a difficult life and doing translations, is dedicated to the rescue of survivors, working in the 'International Alliance Giuseppe Garibaldi "and attended a few friends, including Anna Seghers and Constancia de la Mora.
the night of January 5, 1942, after a dinner with friends at home architect Hannes Mayer, Tina Modotti died, suffered a heart attack, in a taxi that is bringing back home. As had happened after the murder of Julio Antonio Mella, the reactionary tabloid press seeking to turn the death of Tina in a political crime, and gives responsibility to Vittorio Vidali.
Tina's grave in the Pantheon of Dolores in Mexico City, with a profile designed by the sculptor Leopoldo Mendez and the first verses of poetry by Pablo Neruda Pablo Neruda
, outraged by this controversy, writes a great poem that is published by the newspapers and helps to silence the "Jackal" which
... the jewel of your sleeping body
still stretches out her pen and soul as if you could bloody
, sister, smile and recover
above the mud.
The first lines are carved on the grave of Tina who is the Pantheon of Dolores in Mexico City. Throughout the decades after his death, on other occasions have been called into question the events of Modotti's life. Above all the circumstances of death have urged different interpretations, attempts di scoop giornalistici, ambigue ricostruzioni televisive,... Ciò nonostante la biografia di Tina è rimasta sostanzialmente invariata, perché quelle prese di posizione non sono mai state sostenute da rigorose ricerche, da prove o da obiettive e attendibili testimonianze.
Situata accanto alla casa di Tina in via Pracchiuso a Udine la stele per Tina proposta dal Comitato: si riprende il profilo mentre, da Neruda, sono proposte le ultime quartine della poesia, con riferimenti alla terra natale.
tina@comitatotinamodotti.it
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