Changing the Focus: Latin American Photography

The potential in Changing the Focus can be glimpsed in the opening galleries treating architecture, a topic that, if fleshed out, could have singlehandedly charted the recent history of social concern in Latin American art. Luis Molina Pantin’s series Estudio informal de la arquitectura híbrida, Vol. 1, La Narco-arquitectura y sus contribuciones a la comunidad (Informal study of hybrid architecture, Vol. 1, Narco-architecture and its contributions to community; 2004–5) is a quirky analysis of architecture funded by drug money laundered through the construction industry in Colombia. Though often whimsical in design — modeled on landmark buildings such as the Taj Mahal or on enduring styles such as Neoclassical design — narco-architecture has a strong public presence in Colombia, overstated by Molina Pantin through a promotional format: think muscular real-estate publicity shots, in this case consistent with the clout of drug cartels in Colombia. But the view is far from eulogic. In Parque Jaime Duque 1, a planter obstructs the view of the Taj Mahal look-alike, already compromised by the awkward side angle (here and in the rest of the series, the artist worked without the property owners’ permission, and consequently had little chance to shoot from choice vantages). In this photograph, the disproportion between the building’s pompous scale and small size recalls the jerry-built quality of an architectural folly. Molina Pantin ruthlessly applies this principle of the ersatz across the series to redefine the fraudulence of narco-architecture from a pathological standpoint — very simply, that a corrupt and dangerous business results in unreliable form.

Like Molina Pantin, Alexander Apóstol’s series Residente Pulido Ranchos (Polished resident shanty house; 2003) takes a position on slum conditions using the formal geometry of his subjects, the hill shanties of Caracas that were built between the 1940s and 1960s to accommodate foreign and domestic immigrant influx. Identically sized at over six feet tall and set on the ground to lean against the wall, each print focuses on a single building, which towers slightly over a viewer of average height. Monumentality is also established through low-angle perspective, an obsequious variation on New Objectivism’s dispassionate attention to architectural typology, though Apóstol’s full-color view, which roots for the economic underdog, is sly with charm. Hovering on the edge of twee, the series redeems itself by acknowledging the unsettling tension between empowering solutions and insurmountable problems. On one hand, sharp transitions between building materials indicate how slum residents added floors in defiance of zoning laws; on the other, by digitally plastering over the small windows that do exist, Apóstol emphasizes how the poor opt for more interior space over better ventilation. The result is a home that looks like a citadel or prison.