With this major exhibition set up in their respective exhibition spaces, the Cultural Institute of Mexico and the Italian Cultural Institute pay homage to Tina Modotti, an Italian photographer and political activist naturalized in Mexico.
The life of Tina Modotti (Udine, Italy, 1896 – Mexico City, 1942) spanned the great historical and artistic moments of the early twentieth century, from European emigration to America to the Spanish Civil War, through silent cinema, Mexican revolutionary movements, mural art, women’s emancipation and the ideological divisions of the period following the Russian Revolution.
Trained under the guidance of Edward Weston, Tina Modotti quickly developed her own personal style that combined formalism and social commitment. After emigrating from Italy to the United States, she settled in Mexico, where she became part of the post-revolutionary artistic scene, actively participating in the cultural renaissance of the parse.
A leading figure in photography in the 1920s, Tina Modotti used photography to denounce the living conditions of the poor, with particular attention to the representation of Mexican women, thus building a new imagery around them.
As a member of the Mexican Communist Party, she met – around 1927 – Pandurang Khankhoje, an agricultural engineer and revolutionary who, after the shock he experienced during the famine in India, fought for social justice. She collaborated with him and documented his agricultural and botanical research with her photographs; some of these images are exhibited for the first time in Canada at the Cultural Institute of Mexico.
Come and discover the exhibition that – set up in the galleries of the two cultural institutions (the Cultural Institute of Mexico and the Italian Cultural Institute of Montreal) – traces the career of an artist who has marked the history of photography worldwide and in particular Mexican photography.
May 29th 2025 – August 8th 2025 – EXTENDED UNTIL AUGUST 18th
Free admission
Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Montréal
1200 Av. du Dr Penfield
• from Monday to Thursday: 9am – 1pm and 2pm – 5pm
• Friday: 9am – 1pm
Second part of the exhibition
Cultural Institute of Mexico
2055 Peel Street, ground floor, Montreal,
• from Monday to Thursday: 11am – 1pm and 2pm – 5pm
• Friday: 11am – 1pm
Curator : César Damián
The exhibition was created in collaboration with the National Photo Library of Mexico and the National Institute of Anthropology and History of Mexico.
Reservation no longer available
