Luis Marquez in the World of Tomorrow: Mexican Identity & the 1939-40 World's Fair January 28, 2011

This exhibition features over 80 photographs by Luis Marquez (1899-1978), the official photographer for, and art director of, the Mexican Pavilion at the 1939-40 World's Fair. Marquez fostered the image of a folkloric Mexico in photographic styles ranging from anthropological document to ironic theatrical tableau-vivant, often posing Pavilion dancers in their elaborate folk costumes against the ultra-modern World's Fair pavilion architecture. The photographic negatives for these pictures were rediscovered by curators Itala Schmelz and Ernesto Penaloza in the Luis Marquez photographic archive at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in Mexico City. In an additional highlight, the exhibition features a selection of traditional Mexican folk costumes that Marquez included in the Mexican Pavilion. The exhibition will further contextualize Luis Marquez's work in its historic moment with newspaper articles, interviews, advertisements, and World's Fair memorabilia culled from the Queens Museum of Art's 1939-1940 World's Fair collection and other archives in the United States and Mexico.