April 1, 2004
María Lau: The Photography of Recovery
“Photographs furnish evidence.” -Susan Sontag
I first encountered the work of María Lau sometime in early 1999 when she showed up at the Jersey City Museum without an appointment. I was the curator and she was one of countless artists who would stop by to see if the curator would look at the work. When I heard the photographs were of Cuba I immediately started telling myself that once again here was more proof of the latest epidemic: everyone is going to Cuba to take photographs. So what! Nevertheless, I went out to meet her – out of courtesy really – and in a matter of minutes I found myself looking at photographs, both black and white and color, that was the farthest thing from clichés. The images filled my eyes: children, crumbling buildings, old automobiles, a cyclist, the sea, and more, much more, and all of it transfigured by that burning light of the tropics, as Eliseo Diego wrote, “en mi país la luz es mucho más que el tiempo” – that light that is more than time itself, a light that can either devour or caress. I kept looking and as I went from looking to seeing it became obvious that María Lau was recovering the Cuba that she was a part of through these photographs.
Her uses of the photographic medium have expanded since I first encountered her work. Technically she is working with digital photography and her scale has expanded, video, music and oral narration are now an integral part of her way of telling us the stories, of her way of recovering. The more recent work juxtaposes family photographs and documents with places she has photographed during her recent trips to Cuba. These images are more specific in what they recover: her Chinese heritage in Cuba. Like onions, these images are meant to be peeled away by our act of seeing; we remove a layer and encounter another meaning.
These photographs are formally beautiful. Yet beauty by itself is not enough. What is significant to me is how Lau in these photographs manages to reconcile beauty with truth. These photographs are truthful, about María Lau, about her Chinese heritage, about Cuba.
Edward Weston wrote that “photography was a way of self-development, a means to discover and identify oneself with all the manifestations of basic forms” – I would add to Weston’s words recovery. These photographs regain, restore from time and forgetfulness a young woman, her heritage and an island.
The photographs of María Lau furnish evidence.
Alejandro Anreus, PhD
Associate Professor of Art History
and Latin American Studies
William Paterson University
April 1, 2004
María Lau: The Photography of Recovery
“Photographs furnish evidence.” -Susan Sontag
I first encountered the work of María Lau sometime in early 1999 when she showed up at the Jersey City Museum without an appointment. I was the curator and she was one of countless artists who would stop by to see if the curator would look at the work. When I heard the photographs were of Cuba I immediately started telling myself that once again here was more proof of the latest epidemic: everyone is going to Cuba to take photographs. So what! Nevertheless, I went out to meet her – out of courtesy really – and in a matter of minutes I found myself looking at photographs, both black and white and color, that was the farthest thing from clichés. The images filled my eyes: children, crumbling buildings, old automobiles, a cyclist, the sea, and more, much more, and all of it transfigured by that burning light of the tropics, as Eliseo Diego wrote, “en mi país la luz es mucho más que el tiempo” – that light that is more than time itself, a light that can either devour or caress. I kept looking and as I went from looking to seeing it became obvious that María Lau was recovering the Cuba that she was a part of through these photographs.
Her uses of the photographic medium have expanded since I first encountered her work. Technically she is working with digital photography and her scale has expanded, video, music and oral narration are now an integral part of her way of telling us the stories, of her way of recovering. The more recent work juxtaposes family photographs and documents with places she has photographed during her recent trips to Cuba. These images are more specific in what they recover: her Chinese heritage in Cuba. Like onions, these images are meant to be peeled away by our act of seeing; we remove a layer and encounter another meaning.
These photographs are formally beautiful. Yet beauty by itself is not enough. What is significant to me is how Lau in these photographs manages to reconcile beauty with truth. These photographs are truthful, about María Lau, about her Chinese heritage, about Cuba.
Edward Weston wrote that “photography was a way of self-development, a means to discover and identify oneself with all the manifestations of basic forms” – I would add to Weston’s words recovery. These photographs regain, restore from time and forgetfulness a young woman, her heritage and an island.
The photographs of María Lau furnish evidence.
Alejandro Anreus, PhD
Associate Professor of Art History
and Latin American Studies
William Paterson University