Colonial Noir: Photographs from Mexico

Stanford, CA: Stanford General Books, 2004. Hardcover. VG+/VG+. Charcoal boards with silver spine lettering; bw illustrated dust jacket; xxix, 85 pp, profusely illustrated throughout in bw. "The black-and-white photographs in this volume recast our sense of Mexico's colonial architecture by bringing together the unsettling tenor of Mexico's colonial legacies with the ambiguous landscape of film noir imagery. Set against the backdrop of Baroque and Neoclassical architecture, Colonial Noir's images draw on the aesthetics of Surrealism and Modernism to create the existential tone with which the collection confronts the problematic relationship between Mexico's celebrated cultural plurality and its colonial history." "Composed over a period of six years, this body of work bears the subtle influence of Mexican works by Edward Weston, Paul Strand, and Manuel Bravo, as well as the nighttime photographs of Brassai. Santhosh Daniel's introduction places Yalom's work in the context of the history of photographic work on Mexico." "A second major aspect of this work is Yalom's desire to use the lens of Latin American literature - particularly magical realism - to delve into Mexican culture and history. The images in Colonial Noir present a picture of Mexico that highlights a historical side of Mexico of which most foreigners are not aware."--Jacket.