Abstract
The veil's reiterated visibility in Mexican black and white photography is as multi-layered as its material trace is two-dimensional. As a perceptual conceit, the veil stretches to the periphrases of sacred speech and metaphysical exegesis, turning the commonplace cloth — the sábana, mantel, huipil and rebozo — into something meaningful through being overlooked. The interplay of presence and absence characterizes its formal entanglement with photography and pictorial art. Mexican photography's scenography of drapery and the veil seems haunted by the aposcopic gestures of a tradition of religious Christian painting in which 'sight' and its exertions were a central theme. This article does not promise to effect the unveiling of the veil in Mexican photography, but to enter imaginatively into a transaction with its locales and displays, so as to gauge the character of its continued fascination. The subject lends itself to a kind of interpretative torsion — a spiral turning against the platitudinous exhibition of identities. The article discusses work by Manuel and Lola Álvarez Bravo, Héctor García, Mariana Yampolsky, Antonio Reynoso, Luis Márquez, Yolanda Andrade, Pedro Meyer, Tina Modotti, Graciela Iturbide, Rafael Doniz, Kati Horna, Bernice Kolko, Flor Garduño, and Francisco Mata Rosas. It revolves around four guiding threads suggested by titles and phrases related to the photographic material and its contexts: 1) La Verónica, 2) El rebozo nacional, 3) La ley de la sábana, 4) Huipil de tapar.
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