Graciela Iturbide: Shadowlines
The Photographers’ Gallery, London, UK
14 Jun 2024 – 22 Sep 2024
We saw the art show of Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide last week at the Photographers’ Gallery, and I was very impressed by her work. While she is well-known in her home country, she is not as widely recognized outside of Mexico as she deserves to be. Her work offers a fantastic and unique perspective on a culture she portrays with an insider’s approach, which I believe is difficult to achieve unless you are closely connected to or part of that culture. You only have until this Sunday to catch the exhibition. The Photographers’ Gallery is located just off Oxford Street in central London.
Graciela Iturbide (b. 1942, Mexico City) was introduced to photography during her film studies in her home city. However, she soon became drawn to the art of still photography after participating in a workshop with the Mexican modernist master Manuel Alvarez Bravo (1902-2002), with whom she developed a distinctive photographic language.
Graciela Iturbide’s photography offers a unique perspective on Mexican culture, identity, and belonging. In an interview available on the gallery’s website, she explains that the camera is an excuse to explore culture because photography is very subjective. Indeed, she combines a documentary and humanist approach with an imaginative quality, capturing her subjects with depth and sensitivity.
Graciela Iturbide said: “I just take photos of what surprises me and what makes me feel an emotion to photograph.”
Throughout her career, Iturbide has documented the lives of Mexico’s indigenous people, providing a glimpse into their traditions, rituals, and struggles while capturing the resilience and dignity of her subjects. She has created specific and carefully articulated bodies of work, often resulting in the publication of a book.
The exhibition offers an overview and introduction to some of these bodies of work, such as The Women of Juchitán (1979-1989), which focuses on the Zapotec culture. Iturbide captured the strength and vitality of the women by immersing herself in the matriarchal society of Juchitán in Oaxaca. This project, which spanned ten years, required countless trips to this narrow stretch of Mexican territory separating the Pacific Ocean from the Atlantic. Over time, she established a deep connection with the people of the region, where women are economically, politically, and sexually independent, often seen as a source of empowerment.
Another series presented in this exhibition is Those Who Live in the Sand (1979), for which she spent an extended period living with the Seri community in the Sonoran Desert, in north-west Mexico near the Gulf of California. Commissioned by the Mexican government, this project was intended to document this once nomadic indigenous population. However, Iturbide’s pictures go beyond mere documentation, reflecting the community’s forced adaptation to modern life, which began in the 1940s. Her empathetic approach was achieved by living with them for two months.
We also saw the series White Fence (1986-1989), which focuses on Cholo gangs of Mexican origin in Los Angeles and Tijuana. Initially conceived as part of a project to document the USA in a single day (May 2), it evolved into a three-year endeavor as she continued working with this Latino gang (White Fence). She explored the complexities of the Mexican-American community, reflecting on themes such as identity, heritage, and migration.
In more recent works presented in the exhibition, Iturbide’s photography shifts away from human subjects, focusing instead on textures, materials, nature, and light. In Naturata (1996-2004), shot in the botanical gardens of Oaxaca, she presents abstract compositions featuring cacti and other plants, juxtaposed with ropes and jute sacks to create striking visual forms. You can see below some photos of the art blueberry interacting with the artworks.
I strongly recommend attending this show if you have the chance before September 22. It offers a beautiful and in-depth look at Mexican culture through the lens of an insider who knows how to capture her subjects with ease, adding a poetic and unique touch to every scene she composes.
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