Mexico DF, 1966

The limited-edition photograph Mexico DF, 1966, by Bernard Plossu is included in ¡Vámonos! Bernard Plossu in México, published by Aperture/Televisa Foundation in June 2014. The book is a selection of more than three hundred photographs taken by Plossu as he traveled through Mexico between 1965 and 1981. Embracing the vagabond lifestyle, he wandered through Mexico photographing people, landscapes, and a culture in flux.

Plossu’s images of everyday characters, like the two schoolgirls looking at local movie theater posters in the photograph Mexico DF, allow the viewer to generate emotions, metaphors, and stories. The writer Guillermo Samperio said, “After studying Plossu’s work, I think it is also fitting to call him a ‘short-story photographer,’ for at the end of the day what is a short-story writer but a poet who travels?” Using Hemingway’s “principle of the iceberg,” Plossu often leaves out many details, forcing the viewer to imaginatively infer, question, and reflect upon his photographs.

For generations, his black-and-white and color images capturing his bohemian adventures have transfixed young people in France, who cherish him the way young Americans celebrate Jack Kerouac and the Beat generation.

Gelatin-Silver Print
Edition of 25 and 3 Artist’s Proofs
Paper Size: 7 x 9 3/8 inches
Image Size: 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches
Signed and numbered by the artist

Bernard Plossu (b. 1945, Dalat, South Vietnam) has traveled extensively through a life in photography, including in the jungles of Chiapas in Mexico, the American West, India, the Aeolian Islands, and Niger. Widely regarded as a leading figure in French photography, Plossu has published numerous books and his photographs have been exhibited internationally. In 2008, he was the recipient of the CRAF International Photography Award.