Historias para ver: Enrique D?az, fotorreportero

Historias para ver: Enrique D?az, fotorreportero. By Rebeca Monroy Nasr. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de M?xico/Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, 2003. Pp. 335. Illustrations. Notes. Index of names. No Price.

Academia has finally discovered the hypervisual world in

which we live. Unfortunately, the spaces opened up by new media such as photography are being filled too often by seepage from Cultural Studies and Art History. In the United States and Europe postmodern "theorists" buttress their self-referential obfuscations about visual culture by effusively citing the "Bs"-Barthes, Bourdieu, Baudrillard, and Benjamin-while in Mexico, histories of photography are frequently guided by the antiquated methods of traditional Art History.

Rebeca Monroy's study of Enrique Diaz, the "Dean" of Mexican photojournalists from the 1930s to the 1950s, is solidly researched. The author demonstrates a familiarity with postmodern approaches, for she begins with a description of her entry into this project. However, rather than contemplating her navel, the author employs this stance to familiarize readers with the problematic of photo acquisition and conservation. The fact that Diaz's archive of some half-million negatives entered into the Archive General de la Nacion with no accompanying documentation indicates the necessity of developing unique methodologies for photography.