First Act (self-portrait), 2016

Aperture is pleased to release this limited-edition print by Tania Franco Klein in celebration of Aperture Issue #236: "Mexico City". Many of Tania Franco Klein's photographs depict female figures who seem lost in the vastness of an inhospitable landscape or a moment of contemplation, the edges of the self-contained within those of a geometrical interior. Her images are bathed in warm cinematic light, boudoir red, and imbued with a Lynchian sense of menace—they resemble film stills taken mid-narrative, though it’s unclear whether the climactic moment has yet taken place. For her series, Mercado de Sonora (2019), Franco Klein focuses her gaze for the first time, after many photographic projects abroad, on her native Mexico. In the past, she has often donned a wig and turned the camera on herself; in this body of work, her mother and grandmother become the models in an extended form of self-portraiture that captures the ways in which beliefs are passed from generation to generation.

Pigment Print
Image Size: 16 x 10 2/3 inches
Paper Size: 18 x 12 2/3 inches
Edition of 15 + 2 Artist Proofs
Signed and numbered by the artist on a label

Tania Franco Klein (b. 1990, Mexico) started her photography practice while she was studying for a BA in Architecture in Mexico City. Subsequently, she pursued her Master’s in Photography at the University of the Arts London. Franco Klein’s photography is highly influenced by her fascination with social behavior and contemporary practices. She is attentive to leisure, consumption, media overstimulation, emotional disconnection, the obsession with eternal youth, the American dream in the Western world, and the psychological sequels generated in our everyday lives. Her work has been exhibited across Europe, the USA, and Mexico, including international fairs such as Photo Basel, Photo London, PHOTOFAIRS (San Francisco), Getxo Photo, and during the Los Angeles Month of Photography. She has obtained the Sony World Photography Awards in two consecutive years, The Lensculture Exposure Awards, The Felix Schoeller Photo Award of Germany Nominee, FOAM Paul Huf Award nominee, and recently received the Photo London Artproof Schliemann Award as the best emerging artist during Photo London Fair 2018.