The Silent Revolution of Still Life

Among these wide-ranging events, Naturalezas Divergentes finds itself as a semi-hidden little gem at the spectacular venue that is Dolores 54, in Mexico City’s historic center. The exhibition — emphasising the co-existence of the artists’ voices, comparing it to the co-existent layers of Mexico’s history and society — features the likes of Fabrizio López-Gallo Dey, Edgar Ortiz Loyola, Octavio Acevedo Rubio, Andrés Oropeza Petrich, Cristian Muro (MURO) and Emilio Fragoso García, alongside curators Daniela Esponda Rodríguez & Irlanda Orrostieta Díaz (also a participating photographer).

Many of the photographs on show take traditional still-life as an entry point, then accentuate aspects around it, becoming — in the words of curator Esponda Rodríguez — “...pretexts for exploring light, matter, time, and death.” It’s interesting, for instance, just how affecting the interplay of fruit and a white sheet proves to be in the works by Orrostieta Díaz, and Oropeza Petrich pushes the envelope further with everyday flowers placed in a variety of contexts, often in a semi-dishevelled state, or a point where they are beginning to wilt. It is the flower — so often physically exhibited at its high point of exuberance — revealed at its point of weakness, and descent.

"Convivio" ("Get-Together") by Irlanda Orrostieta Díaz. Photo Courtesy of the Artist.

“Historically,” says curator Daniela Esponda Rodríguez, still life has been a “genre of freedom.” Because on the face of it nothing is happening to the object, nor is it doing anything, it gives the chronicler — who might also be the analyst — time and space to look at everything else outside of the centered body. Which is not to say that the externals are divorced from the object itself — far from it — rather they orbit the object, and in doing so are unavoidably affected by its gravitational pull.

And yet apparently there are no feelings there; no relationship, no history; no great — or little — act, beyond light, and time. “They call them ‘dead natures’ ('naturalezas muertas'),” continues Rodríguez, and “yet nothing within them is truly dead.”

It’s at once a stark and essential realisation: that depicted objects are not the subject of a work, but instead a channel to understanding much greater complexities. It’s an understanding which is at the heart of Naturalezas Divergentes ("Divergent Natures"), a photographic exhibition at Dolores 54 in Mexico City this August. The event, running from Saturday 15 (with an opening that evening at 6pm) to Monday 17, from 11am to 6pm daily, is part of the broader Festival FOTOSEPTIEMBRE 2026 — the International Photography Festival of Mexico, being a collective celebration of and for photography in Mexico. Produced in collaboration with Centro de la Imagen ("Center of the Image"), the festival has both a national and international focus which serves to foreground Mexico City as both a location and a breeding ground for top-tier photography, with events across the city.

Also marked is the work of Edgar Ortiz Loyola, who often uses a timepiece as an object in his work, but really speaks much more to the estrangement between related and nearby objects. There is a simple black and white photograph in his collection, for instance, on which we see a clay mug, with a standing spoon, foregrounded in the picture by an apple on its side, which is nothing less than heartbreaking. Equally, included in the exhibition is a color image of what appears to be the side of a mountain, with snow-capped peak, but which could just as easily be (and more likely is) some kind of chocolate cake or confectionery. Never has something sweet and straightforwardly desired, seemed so inaccessible, out-of-reach.

Beyond this, the exhibition continues eclectically as promised, with dovetailing pieces which are markedly different in nature, from Octavio Acevedo Rubio’s more stylised, higher concept pieces, to the abstractions of Emilio Fragoso, and the tonally gothic — almost macabre in parts — work of Fabrizio López-Gallo Dey.

Dolores 54 has by now developed a habit of regularly curating impactful, quality shows, and is always worth a visit as part of any visit to Mexico City’s historic center, and Naturalezas Divergentes is no exception to this rule of being able to see compelling art and this unique location.

"Lo que permanece" ("What belongs") by Edgar Ortiz Loyola. Photo Courtesy of the Artist.

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