Laughing Mannequins (Maniquís riendo)

1930

Manuel Alvarez Bravo
Mexican, 1902–2002

In April 1935, New York gallerist Julien Levy included this photograph in the exhibition Documentary and Anti-Graphic Photographs, which brought the work of Manuel Alvarez Bravo together with that of Walker Evans and Henri Cartier-Bresson. For Levy, the “anti-graphic” photograph renounced conventional fine-art qualities—rich tonality, sharp focus, and clear description—to achieve something that was “dynamic, startling, and inimitable.” Alvarez Bravo’s photograph of cardboard mannequins at an open-air market in Mexico City exemplifies this ideal by evoking seemingly unpremeditated associations within a mundane setting. The imagination, stimulated by such a sight, is liberated through what the Surrealist André Breton called “objective chance.” As the title of this work suggests, a reversal of potentialities operates here: the stall keepers and their customers are listless and uninterested, whereas the inanimate cardboard women floating in the air engage the viewer with vivacious smiles and alluring gazes.

Status: On View, Gallery 1
Department: Photography and Media

Artist: Manuel Alvarez-Bravo
Title: Laughing Mannequins (Maniquís riendo)
Place: Mexico (Artist's nationality)
Date: Made 1930
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Inscriptions: Inscribed recto, on mount, lower right, in graphite: "Muelvarez Bravo"; verso unchecked
Dimensions: Image/paper: 18.7 × 24.1 cm (7 3/8 × 9 1/2 in.); Mount: 40.9 × 32.7 cm (16 1/8 × 12 7/8 in.)
Credit Line: Julien Levy Collection, gift of Jean Levy and the estate of Julien Levy
Reference Number: 1988.157.8

Travis, David. 1976. “Photographs from the Julien Levy Collection: Starting with Atget.” Exh. cat. p. 32, cat. 23.
Greenough, Sarah, Joel Snyder, David Travis and Colin Westerbeck. 1989. “On the Art of Fixing a Shadow: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Photography.” Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art/The Art Institute of Chicago. p. 224, cat. 397, fig. 1.
Sire, Agnes and William Ewing. 2004. “Documentary and Anti-Graphic Photographs; Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans.” Steidl. p. 81.

Art Institute of Chicago, “Photographs from the Julien Levy Collection: Starting with Atget,” December 11, 1976–February 20, 1977; traveled to the International Center of Photography, New York, April 21-May 29, 1977; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, November 4-December 18 1977; Fogg Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts, January 13-Ferbruary 26, 1978; Lakeview Center for the Arts and Sciences, Peoria, Illinois, March 16-April 30, 1978; and Cincinnati Art Museum, November 17-December 24, 1978. (David Travis)
Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art, “On the Art of Fixing a Shadow: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Photography,” May 7–July 30, 1989; traveled to The Art Institute of Chicago, September 16–November 26, 1989; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, December 21, 1989–February 25, 1990.
Art Institute of Chicago, “Bystander: A History of Street Photography,” December 10, 1994-April 16, 1995; traveled to the San Jose Museum of Art, January 16-April 4, 1999. (Colin Westerbeck)
Valencia, Spain, Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno Centre Julio Gonzalez, “Modern Photography in Mexico, 1923–1940,” January 29–May 17, 1998.
Paris, France, Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation, “Documentary and Anti-Graphic Photography: Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans and Manuel Alvarez-Bravo,” September 7–December 22, 2004; traveled to Switzerland, Musee de L’Elysee, February 10–April 10, 2005.
Art Institute of Chicago, “A Mind at Play,” June 14–September 7, 2008. (David Travis)
Art Institute of Chicago, “Photography on Display: Modern Treasure,” May 9–September 13, 2009.

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