Manuel Álvarez Bravo's Solitary Figures Fill a Small Chelsea Room

Nine photographs by Manuel Álvarez Bravo, the Mexican modernist, are on view in a small side room at Yancey Richardson's sunlit Chelsea gallery. The room is roughly the size of a parking space, but it currently holds some of the photographer's most famous images, printed during his lifetime.

All but one of the nine photographs depict lone figures. Together, they present an erotic, dreamy vision of solitude. For visitors unfamiliar with Álvarez Bravo's work, the suite offers a compact introduction.

The standout is "Los perros durmiendo ladran o Los sueños han de creers (Sleeping Dogs Bark or Dreams are for Believing)" (1966), in which a little dog naps alone in the sun, his reclining paws mirroring the diagonal posts of a propped-up fence. Human dreamers likewise appear throughout the suite, sleeping outdoors, alongside beautiful young women who look away from the camera.

The exhibition also includes "El ensueño (Daydreaming)" (1931), "La hija de los danzantes (The daughter of the dancers)" (1933), and "Frida Kahlo (con globo de cristal) (with crystal globe)" (1930), a portrait of the painter holding a crystal globe.

Álvarez Bravo remains one of Mexico's defining photographic voices, and this concentrated display of lifetime prints in a modest gallery room makes the case that his meditations on solitude reward close, unhurried looking.