The photography exhibition featuring a series of dramatic images taken in Northern Mexico by Rodolfo J. Caballero, a LaGuardia Community College photography lab assistant, is on display at the LaGuardia Gallery of Photographic Arts West. “Between Heaven and Earth,” comprises 48 color photographs that capture the photographer’s surrealistic memories of the harsh realities of life along this vast desert region that is sometimes referred to as “Unknown Mexico” or “Lost Mexico” because so few tourists venture to the region.
For three years, Mr. Caballero, with his Nikon, travelled through
Chihuahua, Durango and Coahuila to document the types of jobs people
perform to survive in this isolated land.
“They have some strange occupations,” Mr. Caballero said with a
laugh. He photographed wrestlers, clowns, balloonists and more common
workers like rug weavers, shopkeepers, ranchers and hotel owners.
He walked over to a photograph of a Tarahumara Indian selling her
hand-made baskets and straw dolls in a shallow cavern. In the
foreground are shelves of items that lead you to the back of the cavern
where the woman is cradling her baby. “I found this image very
moving,” said Mr. Caballero. “Here is a woman selling her
handicrafts in a cavern while caring for her child.”
In each photo, whether it is an image of a woman mopping the floors in
an art museum or storeowners sitting in their shop or clothes hanging to
dry in front of a humble dwelling, they all have one thing in common:
explosive colors.
The museum walls are crimson; the walls of the simple storefront are
painted a bold, electrifying green; and an azure-blue house is the
backdrop for a clothesline of brightly colored laundry.
“His work is like walking into his mind,” said Scott Sternbach, the
director of the photography program. “It is not really reality; it is
almost a dream.”
Why such otherworldly shades? “Because I am Mexican,” Mr.
Caballero said with another hardy laugh. “Color in Mexico is a way of
life.”
“I like to think that I am trying to find a diamond inside a box of
candies and confetti that is full of color,” he added. “I haven’t
found it yet, but it is okay, because I keep on trying.”
Mr. Caballaro has been looking for that diamond in Mexico for 30 years.
And after immigrated to the United States two years ago, he is helping
LaGuardia photography students find a diamond in their photographs.
“At LaGuardia, Rodolfo has found a community where he can express
himself on a photographic level,” said Javier Larenas, a senior lab
tech and co-curator of the exhibition. “And share his expertise with
our young, aspiring photographers.”
The photography exhibition is located in the Gallery of Photographic
Arts (B336), 30-20 Thomson Avenue, Long Island City. Viewing hours are
Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. and on Saturdays from 9
a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, please call (718) 482-5985 or
(718) 349-4028 or e-mail Ssternbach@lagcc.cuny.edu .
I´been photographing along Rodolfo, it´s very interesting watch him “hunting” for those colorful-moving images. He is a very sensible photographer.
F. Torres S.