It would be difficult to imagine a more austere nude. Framed in isolation against a dark, empty ground, the body is a simple, symmetrical shape. This is as close as photography has come to achieving an image of ideal form, uncomplicated by earthly experience—and yet we see right away that it is a human body with volume and weight: an undeniably physical presence.
Weston’s work of the 1920s, especially his nudes and photographs of vegetables, shells, and other organic forms, set a new and demanding standard for modern photography. Nothing was left to chance in his pictures, and no detail distracted from the power and clarity of the whole. At the same time, the photographs were unmistakably direct descriptions of particular things. The enormous influence of Weston’s aesthetic rested on his ability to discover the abstract ideal within the perfectly real. The title of the work refers to Mexico, Distrito Federal—Mexico City—where Weston was living when he made the picture.
MoMA Highlights: 375 Works from The Museum of Modern Art, New York (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2019)
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