Historical photo exhibit opens March 13 at Visitor’s Center

The Cochise College Center for Lifelong Learning, the Mexican Consul in Douglas, and the Douglas Visitor Center present an opening reception for the photo exhibit “Mexico: The Revolution and Beyond.” The reception takes place at 6 p.m. Friday, March 13 at the Douglas Visitors Center, 345 16th St.

The exhibit is comprised of a selection of 92 photographs produced between 1900 and 1940, pertaining to the national Casasola Archives, a treasure of Mexico that houses more than half a million photographs taken by the Casasola brothers, Agustin and Miguel, since 1912. The photographs offer an unparalleled portrait of Mexico during the dynamic first half of the 20th century.

Renowned Mexican photographer Pablo Ortiz Monasterio curated the selection of photographs, which are divided into the following sections: the Porfirian Peace, the Revolutionary War, Trades, Modernity, the Eagle and the Serpent, Justice Halls, Night and Famous People. The photos will be exhibited through March 27.

Several related lectures also are planned, kicking off at the grand opening with “The Revolution and Mexico,” presented by Miguel Escobar Valdez, consul for Mexico in Yuma. The lecture begins at 7 p.m. Friday, March 13. Other lectures are:

• Friday,  March 20, 5 p.m. - Manuel  Rojas, “The Chiricahua Apaches in the Border Region”

• Friday, March 20, 7 p.m.  – Juan Valente, “The Revolution in Douglas and Agua  Prieta”

• Friday, March 27, 7 p.m.  – Oscar de la Torre Amezuca, consul for Mexico in Douglas,  “The Revolution in Mexico – Today’s Reality”

The exhibit is sponsored by the Foreign Ministry of Mexico (Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores), National Council on the Arts and Culture (Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes-CONACULTA) and National Institute of Anthropology and History (National Institute of Anthropology and History-INAH). It has been presented in Madrid, Paris, Athens, Vancouver, New York, Austin, San Diego, and Washington, D.C., and in New Orleans during the re-opening of the Mexican Consulate in April 2008 by Mexico’s President Felipe Calderón accompanied by President George W. Bush. It travels to Douglas from the consulate general of Mexico in Yuma.  

For more information, call the Center for Lifelong Learning at (520) 417-4772. Anyone needing an accommodation in order to attend should contact the Disability Services Office, (520) 515-5337 or (520) 417-4023, at least 72 hours in advance.

JUST THE FACTS

Agustín Víctor Casasola (1874 – 1928), - Mexican photographer and partial founder of the Mexican Association of Press Photographers

Casasola began his career as a typographer for the newspaper El Imparcial, eventually moving to reporter then on to photographer in the early 1900s.  He became photographer in 1894. ]By 1911 Casasola was credited with founding the first Mexican press agency, Agencia Fotografica Mexicana. Casasola was later thanked by the interim president in 1911, Francisco León de la Barra, for having “inaugurated a new phase of freedom in the press photography.” By the end of 1912 the agency had expanded and changed its name to Agencia Mexicana de Informacion Fotografica. The agency brought on more photographers and began purchasing pictures from foreign agencies and amateurs, then redistributing those photographs to newspapers.

When El Imparcial went out of business in 1917, Casasola recovered the newspapers archives, eventually compiling many of the photographs into the famed “Album histórico gráfico” which covered the events of the Mexican Revolution. Casasola only managed to print the first 6 volumes covering the years 1910 to 1912. It is believed the work did not fare well due to the changing attitude of people wanting to move on from the death and suffering that plagued the civil war.

In 1920, Casasola as well as other notable Mexican photographers founded the Mexican Association of Press photographers.

Casasola’s collection was later dubbed the Casasola Archive where it was later housed at the National Institute of Anthropology and History of Mexico, the collection totaling over 500,000 prints and negatives.