Instante/revelación: Moments in Mexican Photography at the Getty Center traces a century of Mexican creativity through 13 photographers whose work shaped the country’s visual culture. On view from September 1, 2026, through January 3, 2027, in the Museum West Pavilion’s lower level, the exhibition brings together images by Lola Álvarez Bravo, Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Héctor García, Graciela Iturbide, Pablo Ortiz Monasterio and others, alongside key publications that helped circulate their photographs.
The photographs, donated to the Getty Museum by Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser over the past 25 years, record instantes y revelaciones—instants and revelations—that range from quiet domestic scenes to public moments of political and social change. The selection spans the late 1920s to the mid-2010s, allowing visitors to see how Mexican photographers influenced and responded to one another across generations.
Manuel Álvarez Bravo’s carefully composed images helped define a modernist language in Mexico, while Lola Álvarez Bravo documented everyday life, labor and cultural events with sustained attention. Héctor García’s street photography captured the energy and contradictions of urban Mexico, often with a sharp, critical eye. Graciela Iturbide’s work introduced a poetic, metaphorical approach, blending documentary observation with myth, ritual and the rhythms of daily life.
Pablo Ortiz Monasterio and the other photographers in the exhibition extend that dialogue into later decades, exploring identity, place and the changing role of the medium. The inclusion of books, magazines and other printed materials shows how these images traveled beyond galleries and entered public conversation. Presented in English and Spanish, the exhibition acknowledges the bilingual reality of its subject and its audience.
At the Getty, Instante/revelación does not offer a single narrative of Mexican photography. Instead, it presents a network of practices, influences and visual strategies that together reveal how photography helped shape—and was shaped by—a remarkable century of Mexican art and life.
Image: En su propia cárcel / In Her Own Prison (detail), 1950, Lola Álvarez Bravo. Gelatin silver print. Getty Museum. Gift of Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser. © Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona Foundation
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