Instructions for Inventing a City
Gregorio Díaz x Leica Gallery México & Proyecto H
The city is an ungraspable labyrinth, and I wander through it in an attempt to decipher it.
My eyes pause on the endless visual rhythm of the streets, and I’m thrilled by what I can create with a camera.
Gregorio Díaz
Gregorio Díaz (Bogotá, 1996) is a Colombian photographer and audiovisual artist specializing in fine art and architectural photography, with a focus on street photography. His practice stems from a sensitivity to everyday life and the visual abundance of the urban landscape. This exhibition presents the outcome of the photographic residency by Proyecto H and Leica Gallery México, the first of its kind in the world.
Over the course of a month, Gregorio explored the streets of this megalopolis, which he describes as an “ungraspable labyrinth,” finding in photography a way to pause the city’s chaotic and dazzling rhythm. Instructions for Inventing a City unfolds as a series of glimpses into the urban landscape, revealed through the geometric forms and primary colors that are so characteristic of Díaz’s lens. However, Mexico City is not the only capital present. Gregorio weaves in four photographs from Bogotá, with the ultimate goal of creating a dialogue around the contemporary nature of both cities, and building a shared memory of them.
Among Gregorio’s most tangible photographic influences are the painterly approach of Saul Leiter, the spontaneity of Helen Levitt, and William Eggleston’s use of color. But his greatest influence has been his uncle, Hernán Díaz, the renowned Colombian photographer who, in the 1960s, captured Mexico City (then the Distrito Federal) with a Leica M3, highlighting the curious beauty of everyday Mexican life.
Throughout this past month, Gregorio has been captivated by the intensity with which the city reveals itself: the graphic richness of its streets, its colors, its faces, its light. Gregorio takes a pause and the image appears. It’s his way of breaking through the relentless pulse of the city.
