Mario Algaze: A Respect for Light | MONOVISIONS - Black & White Photography Magazine

MonoVisions Black & White Photo Contest 2024

Throckmorton Fine Art will present works by Latin American photographer Mario Algaze, made in the classic tradition of modernist, all black and white photography. Coming out of a long Latin American tradition from surrealist Manuel Alvarez Bravo to artists like Rufino Tamayo, Giorgio De Chirico, written works of Gabriel García Márquez, Tennessee Williams, and films like Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low, Vittorio De Sica’s The Bicycle Thief and Carol Reed’s The Third Man, Algaze packs each frame with narrative.

Algaze favors the morning hours – the magical time when the sun casts a soft glow on the landscape. His streets are often almost empty and figures, which he often captures at a distance, are elegantly choreographed to freeze heightened moments of grace. The human presence is very important to the photographer, who often waits for figures to enter the scene, thereby coalescing its magic before he takes the photograph. The picture plane is always tightly composed— it is obvious that every part of the frame is carefully considered. This interest in finding and building geometries lies in the classic modernist tendency to seek order from chaos.

Algaze has the soul of a storyteller and he seeks what he terms, profundidad or the depth of human emotion. His photographs are as much about the artist’s own search for the self as they are about the places and people that he photographs. They reveal inner states of mind and simultaneously tell stories about endurance, ancient traditions and their intersection with contemporary life.

Mario Algaze
A Respect for Light
APRIL 9th – MAY 16th, 2015

Throckmorton Fine Art
145 East 57th Street, 3rd Floor
New York 10022
United States
www.throckmorton-nyc.com