Retrato obligado
Photograph
Retrato obligado
From A Graphic History of Mining in Mexico
1993
Gelatin silver print
Image: 6 7/8 × 10 1/4 in. (17.5 × 26 cm)
Paper: 10 7/8 × 14 in. (27.7 × 35.5 cm)
Gift of the FiftyCrows Foundation, 2015
2015.0133.0826
Inscriptions verso BL (written in pencil): [artist's signature] / 2 / RETRATO OBLIBADO, 1993 / MINA LA COLORADA / CHACCHIHUITES, ZACATECAS, MÉXICO / DAVID MAAWAD
verso BR (pencil): MaawadØ2.1
verso BR (pencil): MaawadØ2.1
TextStarting in 1979, David Maawad turned his attention not to mining—a subject traditionally photographed as evidence of Mexico’s successful and democratic modernization—but to miners. With his unsentimental photographs, he sought to reveal, rather than to continue disguising, class difference and social injustice. Maawad photographed scenes that conveyed the dangers faced by miners, but he also underscored the banalities of the everyday lives of these workers, as with the jovial tussle captured in this photograph.
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