Halved peanuts are arranged in a neat, almost ceremonial array; a solemn toy boat and bar of soap float in a bathtub; an insect-like orange peel dances against a black background. This new exhibit of photographer Manuel Álvarez Bravo’s work, curated by Johann Mergenthaler at New York Life Gallery, highlights the snapshots of daily life that most people overlook. Through Bravo’s lens, the ordinary becomes uncanny.
Since his passing in 2002, curators and art lovers alike have returned to Bravo’s work time and time again as a sprawling archive of both his indelible eye and 20th-century Mexican art history. Bravo’s life spanned almost the entire century: He was born in the midst of the Mexican Revolution in 1902, began creating during the international explosion of Mexican art in the ’20s, worked in the nascent Mexican film industry in the ’40s, received a Guggenheim Fellowship during the ’70s, and had a retrospective at the Getty in 2001. His work is foundational to establishing a certain Mexican artistic identity. Yet, it is never reduced to mere historiography; rather, the images are focused squarely on the strangeness that comes with everyday life.
Bravo developed this visual vocabulary by taking inspiration from the national energy of reinvention and especially the streets of Mexico City. The exhibition at the New York Life Gallery, on view through July 24, plumbs Bravo’s archive for one more chance to encounter him anew, an artist capable of boundless surprise and innovation. We spoke with Mergenthaler about the show, its never-before-seen-works, and Bravo’s enduring legacy.
What did you feel had not been shown or understood about Manuel Álvarez Bravo’s work before putting this show together?
I never thought of this exhibition as a retrospective. Instead, it’s a very personal selection of photographs made throughout Bravo’s life that speak to one another across different decades.
Manuel Álvarez Bravo lived for a century—he was born in 1902 and died in 2002—so his work spans almost the entire 20th century. That alone makes his archive extraordinary. Rather than revisiting only the photographs everyone already knows, I wanted to reveal another side of his practice. The archive still contains works capable of surprising us, and I wanted to show that there is still a “new” Manuel Álvarez Bravo waiting to be discovered.
In your opinion, what makes Bravo so special? Beyond his historical significance, what makes his way of seeing the world unlike that of other artists?
My relationship with Manuel Álvarez Bravo has always been through his work. Unfortunately, I never had the chance to meet him, but over the years I’ve come to know him through his photographs, his writings, the people who were close to him, and especially through the remarkable work of the archive.
Working alongside Aurelia Álvarez, who directs the archive with tremendous dedication, has given me an intimate understanding of his legacy. Conversations with those who knew him, countless hours studying the archive, and simply living with his photographs have shaped my relationship with his work.
What makes Bravo so unique is that he created an entirely original visual language. His work is deeply rooted in Mexico, yet it never falls into folklore or cliché. He transformed everyday life into something poetic. A wall, a shadow, a simple gesture—he could turn the ordinary into something timeless. That ability to reinvent the way we look at the world is what makes him one of the great artists of the 20th century.
When curating the exhibition, was your focus more on showing an evolution in Bravo’s career and technique, or rather a consistency in his observational skills across his life’s work?
For me, the guiding thread is surprise. I believe a great artist should never stop surprising us, and Bravo does exactly that. Every photograph proposes a different way of seeing.
Most of the works in this exhibition have never been shown before. I like to think they waited patiently for the right moment to emerge. What fascinates me is that they don’t feel like historical discoveries—they feel completely contemporary. They still speak to us today with remarkable freshness, and that timeless quality is what ties the exhibition together.
Bravo notably lived through the Mexican Revolution and the rise of the avant-garde—major cultural changes. How does this history enter into his work without overwhelming its more solemn, poetic qualities?
The Mexican Revolution was fundamental in shaping a modern Mexican identity. It transformed not only politics, but also the country’s cultural imagination. You can see this in architecture, painting, literature, and, of course, photography. Artists such as Edward Weston, Tina Modotti, and Paul Strand played an important role in the development of modern photography in Mexico, and Bravo absorbed those influences while creating something entirely his own.
His photographs are never simply historical documents. History is present, but it serves as a backdrop rather than the subject itself. What remains at the center is his extraordinary ability to observe the world with empathy, subtlety, and poetry. He used photography not simply to record Mexico, but to imagine it.
How did you go about curating the show of an artist who is no longer with us?
The project really began with a simple question: do we need another Manuel Álvarez Bravo exhibition? The answer was yes—but only if we could say something new. We weren’t interested in repeating the iconic images everyone already knows. We wanted to approach the archive with fresh eyes and discover photographs that deserved to enter the conversation for the first time.
Encountering these works was incredibly exciting because, in many ways, it felt like discovering a new artist. They reveal different aspects of Bravo’s practice while remaining completely consistent with the vision that defines his work. I wouldn’t say they changed my understanding of him. Rather, they confirmed what I already believed—that he was an artist of extraordinary depth whose archive still has so much to offer.
What were some of the biggest challenges you encountered, and did you feel a particular responsibility in shaping viewers’ impressions of a deceased artist? How did you navigate that responsibility?
The greatest challenge was probably deciding to move away from the familiar. People naturally expect to see Bravo’s most celebrated photographs, and introducing lesser-known works always involves a certain amount of risk. But that risk became one of the exhibition’s greatest strengths. Watching visitors respond with genuine excitement to photographs they had never seen before has been incredibly rewarding. It confirms that Bravo’s archive is still full of discoveries.
Were there any specific questions you wish you could have asked Bravo?
There are countless questions I would have loved to ask him. But honestly, before asking any of them, I would simply have invited him to share a tequila, listen to music together, and spend an afternoon talking. I imagine the conversation itself would have been far more valuable than any single answer.
What feels most urgent to you about Bravo’s work in 2026? Is there any particular piece, theme, or era that feels more poignant now? Perhaps the present moment has given his work another layer of meaning?
For me, the most important thing is to keep discovering him. The archive still holds an extraordinary number of unpublished photographs that deserve to be studied, exhibited, and shared. That’s where I believe the future of Bravo scholarship lies. Nearly 25 years after his death, his work continues to feel remarkably alive. Every new image that emerges reminds us that Manuel Álvarez Bravo is not simply a historical figure—he remains a profoundly contemporary artist.
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