The Tiger’s Coat is a project by independent curator Rodrigo Ortiz Monasterio in which fiction and history intertwine. The exhibition is based on the multiple facets of Tina Modotti’s life as photographer, activist, spy and enigmatic cultural figure. The curator transcends the boundaries of the artist’s photographic work to rethink the connections, real and fantastic, that her work has in relation to the contemporary. The title of the exhibition is inspired by a silent film that starred Modotti, released in 1920 in Hollywood.

Modotti, Italian by birth, lived in the United States and later settled in Mexico, where she produced most of her work and became friends with artists and personalities of the time, such as Nahui Olin, Frida Kahlo, and several of the country’s most important muralists, including Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros. In a context of increasing anti-communist repression, the artist, involved in a web of suspicion and accusations, was forced to leave Mexico in 1930. In 1940 she returned to Mexico under a false identity, and her life continued to be marked by mystery.

Through pieces by diverse modern and contemporary artists such as Dahn Vo, Edward Weston, Pati Hill, and Rodrigo Hernández, documents of historical value, and works that reconstruct Modotti’s impact on the art and politics of her time, the exhibition addresses a narrative about the photographer’s multiple relationships both in the past and into the present. Modotti not only documented her time but also created a legacy that defies conventional narratives.