RECOMMENDED
In a second and smaller complement to his photographic reflections on Mexico City’s Tepito barrio at La Llorona Gallery down the street, Francisco Mata Rosas shows us the neighborhood in which the subjects of his individualized portraits create their colorful lives and distinctive personae. From above at a distance, Tepito stands out from its environs as a low lying tract sporting ubiquitous orange, red, blue and yellow tarps. When we get closer, we are greeted by multi-hued clothes hanging out to dry on roof-tops. At street level, we are enveloped in a crazy quilt of signage, awnings and discarded boxes. At last, we look down on a street corner littered with crates, where a man in a grim-reaper costume—complete with a death head, red cape and chains—stands ready to be plucked by Mata Rosas for one of his “studio-street” portraits. (Michael Weinstein) Through November 9 at Havana Gallery