silez + ukuk

Tina Modotti re-enacting the assassination of Julio Mella / Casasola Archives [the salt mine]

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wikipedia: Julio Antonio Mella (25 March 1903 – 10 January 1929) was a founder of the “internationalized” Cuban Communist Party [formally recognized by Moscow in 1925]. […]

Mella was assassinated [shot from point-blank range] on January 10, 1929, while walking home late at night with photographer Tina Modotti. The Mexican government tried to implicate Modotti in the murder […]. It is unclear whether Mella was murdered by the dictatorial Cuban government, if his death was brought about by Trotsky-Stalin Communist Party feuding, or by a combination of these […]. It is […] speculated that he died by the notoriously bloody hand of Vittorio Vidali. […] At the time of his death he was […] trying to organize the overthrow of the Cuban government of General Gerardo Machado. This cause was an embarrassment to the Cuban Communist Party which was trying to gain power by establishing a modus vivendi with Machado.

[wikipedia: Vittorio Vidali (1900 — 1983, also known as Vittorio Vidale, Enea Sormenti, Jacobo Hurwitz Zender, Carlos Contreras, “Comandante Carlos”) was an Italian-born Stalinist. […] Vidali was sent by the Comintern to Mexico to discipline the Mexican Communist Party. His time there brought Vidali’s romantic involvement with communist photographer Tina Modotti […] Vidali was definitely involved in the May 24, 1940 failed frontal assault on Trotsky’s residence in Mexico City, along with Grigulevich and Mexican painter David Alfaro Siqueiros. Vidali is thought to have been involved with the insertion of assassin Ramón Mercader into Trotsky’s inner circle - Mercader was to kill Trotsky later that year. […] [After 1954] Vidali served as a member of Italian Parliament.]

Agustin Victor Casasola / Miguel Casasola in the dark room of his studio in Mexico City, 1925. Note the pistol in his belt

“The Mexican Agustín Víctor Casasola, with the intermittent help of his brother Miguel, began to set up around 1900 one of the most important photographic archives for the history of a country. However, the international recognition of these almost 500,000 photos has not matched its importance. Born in 1874 and raised in the years of the Porfirio Díaz government, Agustín Casasola was a direct witness to all the adversities that led to modern Mexico, and breathed as nobody else the air of a country and a city that developed during the first third of the 20th century at a runaway pace.” [poemas del rio wang]

Archivo fotográfico Casasola / La soldadera / ~1915

Archivo fotográfico Casasola / Graciela de Lara, una de las muchas mujeres del espectáculo. Ciudad de México / ~1928

Agustin Victor Casasola / “Investigators at the home of La Cinta Aznar, killed by Gallegos. One of the most notorious crimes of the period. Mexico City, [ca. 1932]” [***]

Archivo fotográfico Casasola / Hombre cruzando una calle, México D.F. / ~1922

Agustin Victor Casasola / “Woman accused of witchcraft. Mexico City, ca. 1935” [***]

agustin casasola / globos [***]

Agustin Victor Casasola / Playboys. Mexico City, ca. 1935 [***]

Agustin Victor Casasola / “A delinquent arrested with the weapon of the crime and taken to prison. Mexico City, ca. 1935” [***]

Agustin Victor Casasola / “Mexican nightlife found its expression in the theaters Colón, Principal, Arbeu, María Guerrero and Esperanza Iris. Mexico City, ca. 1925” [***]

Archivo fotográfico Casasola / César Augusto Sandino / ~1929

Archivo fotográfico Casasola / El jefe revolucionario Emiliano Zapata / ~1916

Agustin Victor Casasola / Emiliano Zapata, April 10, 1919 / [***]

“On April 10, 1919, [General] Guajardo invited Zapata to a meeting, intimating that he intended to defect to the revolutionaries. However, when Zapata arrived at the Hacienda de San Juan, in Chinameca, Ayala municipality, Guajardo’s men riddled him with bullets. They then took his body to Cuautla to claim the bounty, where they are reputed to have been given only half of what was promised.” [***]