Fr ida y D iego

Photographs by Leo Matiz in Uruguay

13 DECEMBER 2015 - 8 JANUARY 2016

Leo Matiz © Alejandra Matiz

Fr ida y D iego Photograps by Leo Matiz in Uruguay

SATURDAY 12 DECEMBER 2015: Premiere of the exh ib i t ion and of “APERITIVO ITALIANO”

MONDAY 28 DECEMBER 2015:

“NOCHE DE FRIDA” 8 – 10 pm Wine tast ing Bodega Garzón and

screening of the f i lm “Fr ida”, 2002 d irected by Ju l ie Taymor

EXHIBIT ION: 13 December 2015 – 8 January 2016 Everyday 11.30 – 1.30 am | 5.30 – 9.30 pm

APERITIVO ITALIANO Everyday 7 – 9 pm

Leo Matiz © Alejandra Matiz

Fr ida y D iego Photographs by Leo Matiz

Photology is glad to present in the gallery of Garzón (Uruguay), the new exhibition “Frida y Diego. Fotografias de Leo Matiz”, realized with the collaboration of the Leo Matiz Foundation. The exhibition, dedicated to the historical relationship between Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, will display for the first time six original large shaped photographs hand painted by the talented mexican artist Enrique Valderrama Flores. The exhibition comprehends a selection of about 40 photographs - Gelatin Silver Prints, Platinum Prints - realized by Leo Matiz in Coyocan, between 1940 and 1943, all signed by the author and certificated by the Leo Matiz Foundation of the City of Mexico. When Matiz arrived in Mexico in 1940 Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera had already strengthened that peculiar aura of charm and wonder that still associates with the characters. Matiz developed with the two artists a relationship of sincere friendship, so much so that he was invited many times in their residence. The photographer, with a sensitive and acute eye, equipped with his inseparable Rolleiflex, captured simple but unforgettable scenes of Frida and Diego in their "Casa Azul" and in other moments of their everyday life. The images of Leo Matiz bring back the idyllic love between life and desperation, beauty and the bond with the popular traditions of their land. The novelty of the season 2015-2016 will be the new activity of APERITIVO ITALIAN, to enrich the experience of the visitors through the promotion of italian delicacies.

Leo Matiz © Alejandra Matiz

“The union between an elephant and a dove” In 1940, Frida Kahlo bought two ceramic clocks, whose hands' positions varied minimally, to signify the fact that the hours between the separation from Rivera, marked by one of the clocks, and the new wedding, by the other one, were wasted. The clocks of the existences of Frida and Diego started twenty years apart. Frida was born in 1907, although she loved saying she was born in 1910, as she strongly felt like a daughter of the mexican revolution of that year and of modern Mexico. She spent her childhood in Coyocan, with her sisters and her parents, Guillermo Kahlo (1871-1941), a photographer born in Germany, and Matilde Calderòn González, a wealthy mexican woman with hispanic - amerind origins. Diego was born in Guanajuato, December 8th of 1886. He started attending night lessons at the Academy of San Carlos in Mexico City; in 1905 he received a scholarship of the Minister of education, Justo Sierra, and in 1907 another one from the governor of Veracruz that allowed him to travel to Spain where he attended the school of Eduardo Chicharro in Madrid. Their lives went by in parallel until they crossed for the first time in Frida's school, during the execution of the mural Creation, realized between 1921 and 1923. Frida, although already addressed to art by her father, initially intended to become a doctor and applied at the school of preparation, where she joined the rebel group of Los Cachuchas, formed by students who supported the national socialism, named so because of the cap they wore as their distinguishing feature. Frida loved rebelling to the social convictions together with her friends; she cut her hair short and refused to wear a corset. The determination and vivacity that characterized her were scraped, but not destroyed, on september 17th of 1925, when the bus she was traveling on got into an accident with a trolley. She fractured two ribs, one shoulder and her left leg. "I lost my virginity on that accident" she will say ironically, referring to the bus' handrail that stabbed her in the pelvis. It followed The accident resulted in an exhausting series of operations and a long convalescence in her canopy bed, to which her parents decided to apply the mirror that offered Frida the opportunity that made painting the reason of her existence. The reflexion of her motionless body became the first model to what later on turned into the rich series of self-portraits that characterizes her artistic production. Meanwhile Diego had already been married once and had two daughters. Two years after the accident, and four after their first meeting, Frida introduced herself to the artist to have an opinion regarding the large number of paintings she produced throughout her recovery. Their relationship of mutual respect soon became what is considered to be one of the most passionate and controversial love stories of the century. They got married in 1929, though not without polemics; Frida's mother compared their union to the one between a dove and an elephant. He was double her age, her weight, and had had double of her sentimental experiences. Frida made Rivera the fulcrum of her own existence, and got in return by him the same passion but also a long series of unfaithful affairs.

“There have been two great accidents in my life. One was the trolley and the other one was Diego”

Leo Matiz © Alejandra Matiz Leo Matiz © Alejandra Matiz

“Frida’s art is like a ribbon around a bomb”

Leo Matiz © Alejandra Matiz

Together they discovered America, traveling from San francisco to New york for his work, while feeding at the same time her artistic identity. In Detroit Frida was the victim of the umpteenth abortion that originated the autobiographical painting "Henry Ford Hospital", where a bloody Frida expresses all the pain for her inability to have kids. The ever-growing numbers of Diego's affairs, even with Frida's younger sister, damaged the relationship and led in the divorce of 1939.

Frida embarked the same game of her husband, surrounding herself with many prominent figures of the artistic and political scene, such as Tina Modotti, Emmy Lou Packard, Giorgia O'Keefle, Nickolas Muray, Lev Trockij, with whom she tied friendly relationships that frequently crossed with the amorous kind. Rivera came back to Frida one year after: despite the affairs he never stopped loving her. He proposed to her and she accepted with reservations, as she had been heavily let down by the infidelity of the husband. They got married for the second time in 1940 in San Francisco. From him she assimilated a naif style, that led her to paint small self-portraits inspired by folk art and to pre-Columbian traditions. Her intention was, by resorting to themes from native civilizations, to affirm her own mexican identity. In the self-portrait Diego and I, Frida cries, framed by a mane of black hair. On her head, above the thick eyebrows that characterize her image known to all, is Diego, her recurring thought, her love and her tormenter. Frida's pain, that became unbearable, pushed the doctors to amputate her leg; it was another trauma that threw her in a deep depression. The life of Frida ended in 1954, following a pneumonia. One year after Diego got married with Hemma Hurtado, his agent; but when he died too, three years later, he expressed the wish that his ashes would rest next to the one and only love of his life. It was not granted. He was buried like the other famous men in the Rotonda of the City of Mexico. Frida's ashes instead lie in their "Casa Azul", theatre of their passionate and conflicted love, that currently houses the Museum of Frida Kahlo.

“I hope the exit is joyful and I hope never to return”

Leo Matiz © Alejandra Matiz Leo Matiz © Alejandra Matiz

LEO MATIZ-BIOGRAPHY Leo Matiz is considered one of the most versatile and original photographers of the photojournalists' generation who renovated the artistic scene of the first sixty years of the XX century in Latin America, United States and Europe. Born in 1917 in Colombia, in the village of Aracataca - the magic Macondo of Gabriel Garcìa Marquez' One Hundred Years of Solitude- where the lushness of the tropical landscape clashed with with the modest lifestyle of the banana cultivators inhabitants, Matiz spent his adolescence in Bogotà, where he worked for the newspaper El Tiempo. There he soon began to frequent the scene of the bohemian cafes, meeting point of illustrators and painters. Following the advice of Enrique Santos Molano "Calibano" -grandfather of the current president of Colombia - Matiz grew close to photography and eventually built a reputation of passionate photojournalist,

sensible in immortalizing the characters he captured through the lens of his Rolliflex. Passionate and tireless, almost obsessed with reaching the perfection of his journalistic mission, Matiz travelled through five continents, and brought his talent of photographer in the field even in cinema and advertising photography. He worked as a caricaturist, editor and gallery director; he displayed in 1952 the works of the painter Fernando Botero in his first exhibition at the Leo Matiz Art Gallery. Between 1940 and 1948, during his stay in Mexico, he met and photographed the painter Frida Kahlo and her husband Diego Rivera in Coyocan, quarter of Mexico City where the painter lived since she was a child. Matiz realized many portraits of celebrities of the artistic and cinematographic scene of those years; portraits that bring out sincerity, charm and profound sociological penetration. To name a few: Ester Williams, Janice Logan, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Agustìn Lara, Gabriel Figueroa, José Clemente, Orozco, Mario Moreno, Marc Chagall, Dolores del Rio and Pablo Neruda. History brought him to Paris, to document the liberation from the nazi regime

the 24th of August of 1944; Matiz immersed himself into the nocturne and vibrant atmospheres of the freed city, following the footsteps of photographers such as Doisneau and Brassai, unforgettable narrators of Europe between the two wars. Traveling from one country to another, the adventurous life of Leo Matiz received the recognition of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres of 1995 from the french government and in 1997 the one of the Filo d'Argento in Florence. In 1998 the Leo Matiz Foundation was founded in Santa Fe of Bogotà, with the aim of passing on to the new generations the artistic heritage of the photographer in collaboration with Leo's daughter Alejandra, specialized in art restoration, who lived in Milan for more than twenty years. Matiz died in Bogotà the 24th of October of 1998, recognized as one of the most important figures of the photography of the XX century.

ENRIQUE VALDERRAMA FLORES-BIOGRAPHY Enrique Valderrama Flores was born in 1968 in Ciudad de Mexico. From an early age he began attending painting and caricature courses which led him to apply for the visual arts degree at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. In 1992 he started teaching painting courses for adults, such as artistic painting, oil painting and watercolor. He is currently teacher of artistic painting technique at the Casa de la Cultura in Tlalpan and has a particular laboratory in Colonia Isidro Fabela, Tlalpan. Until now he took part in many collective and individual expositions starting at a very young age. To name a few of the most recent: 2011 – Exposición pictorica “Uniendo Sentimientos” in the prestigious gallery set in calzada de las Aguilas, 669 2012 – Exposición pictorica “Pinceladas de Expresión” in the Casa Frissac Centro de Tlalpan 2013 – Exposición pictorica “Todos somos todo” Galeria “Matiz” Polanco

With the collaboration of Leo Matiz Foundation

APERITIVO ITALIANO NOW IN GARZÓN, URUGUAY!

Photology is glad to present APERITIVO ITALIANO. Together with the gallery and the bookshop, Photology Garzón adds a new activity connected to Italian excellence in Food & Wine. APERITIVO ITALIANO for the season 2015-2016 aims to introduce in the touristic territory that surrounds Punta del Este, a new touch of european class to share the finest local wine production with classic Italian food products. The exhibiting space of Photology set in Garzón, geographical area of agribusiness products such as oil, wine and fruit, is an oasis of peace and tranquility. The charming garden of the gallery will frame a special installation of art books and, precisely, a space dedicated to the aperitif. Every evening between 7 pm and 9 pm visitors will taste quality wines paired with a platter of italian cold cuts and cheeses served with tigelle (typical bread of the modenese area). The guests and visitors will be able to relax in the outside lobby of the gallery, sipping their favorite wine, browsing through books and catalogues available for the occasion. The gallery staff will also be available for guided tours of the exhibition throughout the time of the aperitif.