Michel Otayek

Freie Universität Berlin, Lateinamerika-Institut, Post-Doc

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I am an art historian specializing in 20th-century photography and print culture in Ibero-America. I hold an M.A. from Hunter College (Art History, 2012) and a Ph.D. from New York University (Spanish and Portuguese, 2019). My research focuses on the production and circulation of photographic images, emphasizing questions of gender, mobility, and cultural exchange. My published scholarship showcases his ability to think critically about issues of cultural production from a transnational, interdisciplinary perspective.

Approved with distinction, my doctoral dissertation examines the careers of exiled photographers Kati Horna (1912 - 2000) and Grete Stern (1908 - 1999) in Mexico and Argentina, respectively. Paying close attention to their mobile positions across networks of cultural production, I underscore the photographers' ability to exercise a wide range of creative choices within dense markets of print culture.

My curatorial experience includes "Told and Untold: The Photo Stories of Kati Horna in the Illustrated Press" (Americas Society, 2016), the first exhibition in the United States dedicated to the work of the Hungarian-born Mexican photographer. Among other institutional projects, I have collaborated with the Reina Sofía Museum's online portals "Rethinking Guernica" (2017) and "Front and Rearguard: Women in the Spanish Civil War" (2021).

As a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Lateinamerika-Institut, my current project (“Mobility, Otherness, and Cultural Difference: Ethnographic Photography by European Women in Postwar Latin-American”) considers the production of photographic images under conditions of unequal conviviality and their transnational circulation through a wide range of print materials and exhibitions. Within the context of his project, funded by the Einstein Stiftung and the Berlin University Alliance, I am preparing a monograph titled "Culture Brokers: Ethnographic Photography by European Women in Latin America."

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Books by Michel Otayek

Photography, Mobility and Collaboration: Kati Horna in Mexico and Grete Stern in Argentina

Ph.D. dissertation (New York University), 2019

Taking their exile from Europe in the late 1930s as a point of departure, my dissertation examine... more Taking their exile from Europe in the late 1930s as a point of departure, my dissertation examines critical yet often overlooked aspects of the photographic careers of Kati Horna (Budapest, 1912 – Mexico City, 2000) and Grete Stern (Wuppertal, 1908 – Buenos Aires, 1999) in Mexico and Argentina, respectively. Throughout this work, I consider how both photographers exercised a wide range of creative choices within dense markets of print culture in Latin American metropolises. Challenging paradigms of individual authorship, I emphasize Horna and Stern's mobile position within networks of cultural production to gain a deeper understanding of their practices as processes of lived experience that offered them means of sustenance and opportunities for creative expression, oftentimes in interrelated ways. Through the examination of a diverse range of materials, from photographic prints, interviews, and personal correspondence to illustrated periodicals and photobooks, I correlate some of Horna and Stern’s individual concerns with the collective circulation politics of their images. Moving from objects to process, my analysis examines the circumstances of production and circulation of these materials, with close attention to the positions Horna and Stern chose to occupy within networks of cultural production. Throughout my discussion, I underscore the importance of supplementing visual analysis with other tools of critical inquiry to fully grasp the complexities of their experiences as cultural producers and better appreciate their idiosyncratic contributions to Latin American visual culture.

Del reportaje periodístico a la rebelión contra el arte: las vidas múltiples de "El iluminado" de Kati Horna

Lámpara de mil bujías: Fotografía y arte en América Latina desde 1839, 2018

Essay written for "Lámpara de mil bujías: Fotografía y arte en América Latina desde 1839" (Barcel... more Essay written for "Lámpara de mil bujías: Fotografía y arte en América Latina desde 1839" (Barcelona: Editorial Foc, 2018). Edited by Elena Rosauro and Juanita Rosauro, "Lampara de mil bujías" offers a selection of recent studies about lesser-known aspects of the history of photography in Latin America. My essay explores the remarkable circulation history of a single photographic image by Kati Horna. Originally taken in 1944 for a photographic reportage about the Central Mental Asylum in Mixcoac, in the outskirts of Mexico City, Kati Horna’s "El iluminado" (The Enlightened One) depicts one of the patients living in the then-overcrowded institution. In 1961, nearly two decades after being first published in the Mexican illustrated weekly "Nosotros," the portrait was one of the works included in the controversial collective exhibit Los Hartos (The Fed-Ups), organized by Mathias Goeritz at the Antonio Souza Gallery. This article examines the rich circulation history of the image, one of the best known within the photographer’s corpus. Paying attention to how it was re-signified in domestic and public settings, I propose that the portrait’s inclusion as an artistic object in Los Hartos sought to condemn the contemporary system of production and commercialization of art by problematizing the ontological essence of photography. Other contributors to "Lámpara de mil bujías" include Andrea Cuarterolo, María Fernanda Domínguez, Esther Gabara, Juanita Solano, Jorge Latorre y Ana Balda, Ileana Cepero, Laura González Flores, Natalia Fortuny, and Montserrat Rojas.

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La Venezuela distante de Barbara Brändli / Barbara Brändli's Distant Venezuela

Barbara Brändli, 2018

Essay written for "Barbara Brändli" (Madrid: La Fabrica, 2018), the first bilingual monographic p... more Essay written for "Barbara Brändli" (Madrid: La Fabrica, 2018), the first bilingual monographic publication dedicated to the work of the Swiss-born photographer. This volume from La Fabrica's PHotoBolsillo series follows Brändli's career in Venezuela as she photographed indigenous communities, urban Caracas, cultural institutions and Andean farmers in the isolated páramo.

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Contando a Kati Horna: apuntes breves sobre el oficio de historiador

Esferas (7), 2017

Essay written for the seventh issue of the academic journal Esferas, dedicated to Photography and... more Essay written for the seventh issue of the academic journal Esferas, dedicated to Photography and Film. Published by NYU's Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Esferas is a peer-reviewed, annual publication that publishes exceptional critical essays, visual art, creative writing, interviews, translations, and works related to Hispanic and Luso life within and beyond New York City. My text offers a personal reflection about my work as an art historian on the Hungarian-born Mexican photographer Kati Horna. Other contributors to this issue of Esferas include, among others, Cristina Elena Pardo, Lourdes Davila, Jordana Mendelson, Osdany Morales, Sergio Chejfec, Pablo la Parra Perez, Cristina Colmena, and Laura Rubio.

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Keepsakes of the Revolution: Transnational Networks and the U.S. Circulation of Anarchist Propaganda During the Spanish Civil War

Writing Revolution: Hispanic Anarchism in the United States, 2019

Essay included in "Writing Revolution: Hispanic Anarchism in the United States (Chicago: Universi... more Essay included in "Writing Revolution: Hispanic Anarchism in the United States (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2019). Edited by Christopher J. Castañeda and Montse Feu, "Writing Revolution" examines many facets of Spanish-language anarchist history. In this essay I discuss some of the literature produced by the CNT-FAI's Foreign Propaganda Office during the Spanish Civil War, including a richly-illustrated booklet with text in several languages and images by the Hungarian-born photographer Kati Horna. I show that while the CNT-FAI revolutionary narrative had the power to generate considerable media interest and mobilize public support beyond anarchist circles, the Foreign Propaganda Office failed to capitalize on the strengths of existing networks across the United States at a time of increased collaboration between Hispanic and non-Hispanic anarchist groups. As head of the Foreign Propaganda Office Augustin Souchy developed and sought to carry out a propaganda production and distribution strategy that relied heavily on his links to anarchist networks across Europe, particularly in France and Sweden, while all but neglecting the renewed strength of the movement in North America. Other contributors to "Writing Revolution" include Jon Bekken, Christopher Castañeda, Jesse Cohn, Sergio Sánchez Collantes, María José Domínguez, Antonio Herrería Fernández, Montse Feu, Sonia Hernández, Jorell A. Meléndez-Badillo, Javier Navarro Navarro, Mario Martín Revellado, Susana Sueiro Seoane, Kirwin R. Shaffer, Alejandro de la Torre, and David Watson.

Fotografía y excepcionalidad: Barbara Brändli, Thea Segall y el sur venezolano

Studia Iberica et Americana (2), 2018

Essay included in "Las otras modernidades de Venezuela," a special issue of Studia Iberica et Ame... more Essay included in "Las otras modernidades de Venezuela," a special issue of Studia Iberica et Americana edited by Juan Pablo Lupi (University of California, Santa Barbara). In this essay, I explore the participation of photographers Barbara Brändli and Thea Segall in projects centered in southern Venezuela. Taking into consideration their perspective as foreign-born women and underscoring certain differences in their authorial discourse as photographers, I examine the publication of their images in printed materials that, in their advocacy of Venezuela’s ostensibly exceptional modernity, postulate a peculiar relationship between the country’s present and its premodern past. Other contributors to this special issue of Studia Iberica et Americana include Evelyne Laurent-Perrault, Juan José Rosales Sánchez, Juan Cristóbal Castro, Arturo Gutierrez Plaza, Vicente Lecuna, Rebeca Pineda Burgos, and Miguel Vásquez.

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Loss and Renewal: The Politics and Poetics of Kati Horna's Photo Stories

Told and Untold: The Photo Stories of Kati Horna in the Illustrated Press, 2017

Essay written for the catalog of "Told and Untold: The Photo Stories of Kati Horna in the Illustr... more Essay written for the catalog of "Told and Untold: The Photo Stories of Kati Horna in the Illustrated Press," the first exhibition in the United States dedicated to the work of the Hungarian-born Mexican photographer, which I co-curated with Christina de León. Held at Americas Society (New York) during the fall of 2016, "Told and Untold" offered a comprehensive overview of Horna’s diverse practice and included a numerous photographs (including some never before seen), contact sheets, montaged cuttings, personal albums, and a large selection of newspapers and magazines in which her work circulated. Grounded on years of archival research in Mexico, the United States and Europe, my essay offers an overview of Kati Horna's career with special emphasis on how her involvement with anarchism during the Spanish Civil War shaped the course of her subsequent career as an exiled photographer in Mexico City.

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Papers by Michel Otayek

Greed, Violence, and Desire: Alfredo Boulton's Portrait of a Venezuelan Fisherman

Journal of Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture, 2024

A carefully composed, medium-shot portrait shows a fisherman from the Venezuelan town of Pampatar... more A carefully composed, medium-shot portrait shows a fisherman from the Venezuelan town of Pampatar looking confidently at the camera. He seems to have just come out of the water behind him, a sun-drenched beach on the Caribbean island of Margarita. His dark skin contrasts sharply with a nearly incandescent background saturated with tropical light. The portrait, taken in the mid-1940s, appears in "La Margarita," a 1952 book by Alfredo Boulton (1908–1996), a Venezuelan intellectual, photographer, and promoter of modern art. In this essay, a close reading of this portrait helps me examine its rhetorical function within a publication that scholars and critics consider a milestone in the history of modernist photography in Venezuela.

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Fotografía y excepcionalidad: Barbara Brändli, Thea Segall y el sur venezolano

Studia Iberica et Americana: journal of Iberian and Latin American literary and cultural studies, 2018

espanolLa explotacion economica de los extraordinarios recursos naturales del sur venezolano cont... more espanolLa explotacion economica de los extraordinarios recursos naturales del sur venezolano contribuyo a alimentar el paradigma de excepcionalidad venezolana que permeo buena parte del discurso politico, academico y cultural sobre el pais durante la segunda mitad del siglo veinte. Dentro de este contexto, el modo en que en Venezuela se dio sentido a lo indigena y a lo rural como componentes de la identidad nacional contrasta con el devenir de otras modernidades latinoamericanas. Este trabajo examina la participacion de las fotografas Barbara Brandli y Thea Segall en proyectos etnografi cos centrados en el sur venezolano. Considerando su perspectiva como mujeres extranjeras residenciadas en el pais y poniendo de manifi esto algunas diferencias en su discurso autoral como fotografas, el autor examina la publicacion de sus imagenes en materiales impresos que, promoviendo la idea de una modernidad venezolana excepcional, postulan una relacion peculiar entre el presente del pais y su pasado pre-moderno EnglishThe economic exploitation of abundant natural resources in southern Venezuela helped lend credence to a paradigm of exceptionality that informed much of the political, academic, and cultural discourse about the country during the second half of the twentieth century. Within this context, the way in which questions about indigeneity and rural traditions played out in discussions about modern national identity diff ered from other countries in Latin America. This paper considers the participation of photographers Barbara Brandli and Thea Segall in projects centered in southern Venezuela. Taking into consideration their perspective as foreignborn women and underscoring certain diff erences in their authorial discourse as photographers, the author examines the publication of their images in printed materials that, in their advocacy of Venezuela’s ostensibly exceptional modernity, postulate a peculiar relationship between the country’s present and its premodern past

Horna, Kati

Oxford Art Online, Dec 12, 2019

Keepsakes of the Revolution

University of Illinois Press eBooks, Oct 30, 2019

&amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;gt;This chapter examines the literature produced by the CNT-FAI dur... more &amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;gt;This chapter examines the literature produced by the CNT-FAI during the Spanish Civil War, with a focus on Estampas de la Revolución Española and ¿España? Un libro de imágenes sobre cuentos de miedo y calumnias fascistas. The author shows that the revolutionary narrative had the power to generate considerable media interest and mobilize public support beyond anarchist circles. However, the Foreign Propaganda Office failed to capitalize on the strengths of existing networks across the United States at a time of increased collaboration between Hispanic and non-Hispanic anarchist groups. As head of the Foreign Propaganda Office, Augustin Souchy developed and sought to carry out a propaganda production and distribution strategy that relied heavily on his links to anarchist networks across Europe, particularly in France and Sweden, while all but neglecting the renewed strength of the movement in North America.&amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;gt;

Keepsakes of the Revolution

Writing Revolution, 2019

This chapter examines the literature produced by the CNT-FAI during the Spanish Civil War, with a... more This chapter examines the literature produced by the CNT-FAI during the Spanish Civil War, with a focus on Estampas de la Revolución Española and ¿España? Un libro de imágenes sobre cuentos de miedo y calumnias fascistas. The author shows that the revolutionary narrative had the power to generate considerable media interest and mobilize public support beyond anarchist circles. However, the Foreign Propaganda Office failed to capitalize on the strengths of existing networks across the United States at a time of increased collaboration between Hispanic and non-Hispanic anarchist groups. As head of the Foreign Propaganda Office, Augustin Souchy developed and sought to carry out a propaganda production and distribution strategy that relied heavily on his links to anarchist networks across Europe, particularly in France and Sweden, while all but neglecting the renewed strength of the movement in North America.