ICP: The Mexican Suitcase

The first thing that I see when I walk into the International Center of Photography is a blown-up picture of an opened case: the cover of the case is divided into many boxes with different descriptions in respect to their negative’s cubbyhole. These negatives were recovered in Mexico City; in 2007, the International Center of Photography received three of these cases filled with the negatives of photographs taken of the Spanish Civil War. These photographs were taken by Robert Capa, Gerda Taro, Fred Stein, and David Seymour (also known as Chim). The Mexican Suitcase exhibit featured various photographs of soldiers, the warfront, various places such as churches and factories, as well as magazine and newspaper excerpts.

From 1936 to 1939, Robert Capa captured the events of the Spanish Civil War alongside Gerda Taro and David Seymour. Before fleeing from Europe to America in 1939, Capa left thousands of negatives in Paris, which ended up in Mexico City more than half a century later. Most of Capa’s photographs on display featured the warfront and the backs of soldiers. He was a daring photographer who was unafraid of following soldiers straight into the midst of war. Many photographs, including “Republican soldiers storming forward in jumps, Rio Segre, Aragon front, near Fraga, Spain,” “Republican machine gunner behind stones, Rio Segre, Aragon front, near Fraga, Spain” and “Republican soldiers bring in the wounded, Rio Segre, Aragon front, Fraga, Spain” feature soldiers with their back turned to his camera, focusing on the war in front of them. I was intrigued by the photograph with a soldier carrying another soldier over his shoulder because Capa strategically took the photograph with them as the main focus, right in the center of the frame. They are cast in shadow from the sun behind them and are the darkest points in the picture.

Many of Gerda Taro’s photographs are in the setting of a forest in Navaserrada Pass, Segovia front in Spain. Some photographs feature soldiers ready for battle, such as “Republican soliders crouching, Navacerrada pass, Segovia front, Spain” and others show soldiers at ease, such as “Republican soldiers standing by tank, Navaserrada Pass, Segovia front, Spain.” Other photographs showed the brutality of war, such as three particular photographs with wounded soldiers on stretchers. These pictures seemed almost posed since the soldiers carrying the wounded looked directly into the camera when she took the photographs.

Chim’s photographs were extremely diverse, varying from the “Siege of Alcazar Toledo,” a photograph taken in a textile factory in Sabadell in 1936, to photographs of church exteriors and architectural details in the Basque region. Chim’s photographs of the architectural details of the churches and the Butron Castle really stood out to me in the sense that he took many photographs in varying positions and angles relative to the buildings.

I came across a glass showcase which contained the actual case with the negative films still inside of it. Much smaller than the enlarged picture on the wall at the front entrance, it was interesting to see the minute details of the case and the fact that you can see that aging has occurred to the case.

Going downstairs to the exhibit Cuba in Revolution, there were a series of photographs that stood out to me of the same person, Che Guevara, an Argentine Marxist revolutionary. At first glance, I wondered why every single photograph was of him strategically propped up to take a picture for the camera. As I read the captions for each photograph, they spoke of the same fact: this was a photograph of the corpse of Che Guevara. In a couple of the photographs, Guevara is the main focus, while in others, there are numerous soldiers around him. One photograph showed a soldier holding a picture of Guevara next to his body.

Passing through these two exhibits, I felt as if I was witness to many of these events, as a soldier in the war, as a bystander to the culture around me in Spain, and as a sponge taking in all of the history around me in these photographs. I learned so much from these photographs and noted many of the photographers’ techniques when taking the picture, considering the direction of light, the focal point of the picture, and choosing the subjects to take pictures of.

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