Mexico has fascinated Dallas-based photographer Laura Wilson for four decades. In Roaming Mexico: Laura Wilson, now on view at Meadows Museum, SMU through Jan. 11, the photographer reveals the nuances of the United States’ southern neighbor.
“The contrast and the energy you get from the contrast of Mexico is a wonderful thing,” Wilson said.
The exhibition features nearly 90 images created from about 40 years of Wilson’s travels to Mexico. Most of them have never been published before, and some of the photographs were taken specifically for this exhibition.
Complementing Roaming Mexico: Laura Wilson is Manuel Álvarez Bravo: Visions of Mexico, an exhibition of works by one of the most influential photographers in Latin America. Featuring more than 30 silver gelatin prints taken in Mexico from the 1920s to the 1980s, the exhibition draws from the collections of the Meadows Museum, the Dallas Museum of Art and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art.
Highlighting festivals, religious processions, everyday moments, and traditional farms, Roaming Mexico is Wilson’s deeply personal perspective of Mexico, delving into the contradictions and unique vibrancy of Mexico.
That energy is visible in a photograph depicting a street scene.
“I love street life,” Wilson said. “You can get breakfast – breakfast tacos – you can be on horseback heading into a major city in Mexico, or you can be trucking chickens along or taking a bus car. This is all the life of the street.”
© Laura Wilson.
© Laura Wilson.
Laura Wilson, Diptych: Fire Breathers, Uruapan, Michoacán, and Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas (Díptico: tragafuegos, Uruapan, Michoacán y Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas), 2005/1985. Archival pigment print. © Laura Wilson.
One of the first photographs of Mexico Wilson created was of a fire-breather who suddenly appeared as she and a friend sat in a stopped car shortly after crossing the border.
“I had never seen anything like this before. It was a stunning picture to me, and I thought, “Mexico is it. I’ve got to go back,’” Wilson said.
Twenty years later, Wilson saw another fire-breather and created a diptych of the images. She adjusted the color in one photograph and added color in to a black and white photograph to create the dramatic scene.
“To me, Mexico is color and such wonderful color,” Wilson said.
Meadows Museum, SMU
Meadows Museum, SMU
Laura Wilson documented the harsh realities of Mexico, including migrant camps and the nation’s poorest citizens.
Wilson does not shy away from the harsh realities of Mexico. She documented the construction of a thirty-foot-high barrier across sections of the border and photographed law enforcement officers and migrant camps. She also created photographs of Mexico’s poorest citizens, capturing their resilience and determination. In one photo, a young girl poses protectively in front of her father and sister.
“I didn’t tell this little girl how to look at the camera, but the strength at which she is facing the camera and also keeping me at a distance. She’s no nonsense,” Wilson said.
The exhibition also features portraits of important cultural figures, such as writers Gabriel García Márquez and Carlos Fuentes and architects Ricardo Legorreta and Alberto Kalach. Wilson photographed Mexican folk art collectors Jaime Ristra and Patricia Ortiz Monasterio at home among their impressive collection.
“They know every single piece,” Wilson said.
Meadows Museum, SMU
Meadows Museum, SMU
Wilson captures not just the art collectors but their growing collection as well.
Wilson photographed artisan and agricultural workers, many of them at work. One man she met at a market in Mexico City eagerly grinned from the camera. She explained she did not want him to smile.
“A smile is often a mask,” Wilson said. “You often see more of what a person is when a person quiets himself or herself and you can see something in the face.”
Twenty years later, she ran into that same man, and he remembered her, striking a more serious pose. In her travels, she has never found language to be a barrier. She engages with all of her subjects and everyone, from dignitaries to tortilla makers, know they are being photographed. Always focused, Wilson is never light-hearted about her work. Her subjects respond to her artistic earnestness.
“If you approach someone with respect and seriousness, they get that this isn’t just a snapshot. This is something more,” Wilson said.
A gallery features a series of photographs too at an oxen parade. Over five nights, more than 100 decorated oxen carts paraded through Juchitán, Oaxaca.
© Laura Wilson
© Laura Wilson
Laura Wilson, Parade of Oxen, Grandmother with Granddaughter, La Feria de las Velas, Juchitán, Oaxaca (Desfile de bueyes, abuela consu nieta, La Feria de las Velas, Juchitán, Oaxaca), 2011. Archival pigment print. © Laura Wilson.
“It was a major parade. I’ve never seen a better parade,’ Wilson said.
Wilson adjusts the color and sandwiches two images together, creating her personal memory of her experience of the parade. The images reflect the Mexico Wilson knows, loves and wants to share.
“Many of them are not real. They’re more my memory and my feelings about the day and the situation I saw,” Wilson said.
Learn more: Meadows Museum, SMU