G Raciela Iturbide's Mexico

Graciela Iturbide’s Mexico Graciela Iturbide’s Mexico Photographs Kristen Gresh with an essay by Guillermo Sheridan MFA Publications Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 0 Director’s Foreword 0 Introduction: Dreams on Paper 00 Early Work 00 The Seri 00 Juchitán 00 La Mixteca 00 Fiestas 000 Death 000 Birds 000 Botanical Garden 000 Frida Kahlo’s Bathroom 000 Paths, Frontiers, Mirrors Guillermo Sheridan 000 List of Illustrations 000 Acknowledgments Introduction: Dreams on Paper Graciela Iturbide’s two most well-known images are majestic photo- the dualities of human presence and nature, the real and the unreal, graphs of indigenous Mexican women: Our Lady of the Iguanas / Nuestra and death and dreams. Señora de las Iguanas and Angel Woman / Mujer ángel, both from 1979. Iturbide’s decision to follow her dreams and begin a life as a These photographs have taken on lives of their own as they have been photographer took a great deal of courage. She had to reinvent appropriated by many, both for their intrinsic power and as symbols herself, and to do that she resisted the traditional expectations for of the plight of Mexico’s indigenous peoples. Yet while they helped women in the bourgeois society in which she was raised. Born in establish Iturbide’s reputation as a great photographer, they represent 1942 in Mexico City, Iturbide was the eldest of thirteen siblings. only a small part of the variety and depth of her contribution to pho- When she was growing up, she was fascinated by her father’s camera tography. To gain a fuller picture of the scope of Iturbide’s work and and considered the box of family pictures to be their household’s her evolution as a photographer over the past fifty years, one must greatest treasure. As a young girl, she dreamed of being a poet, and examine how her photography reflects an exploration of both her per- she found solace in acting at her Catholic boarding school. Although sonal and her national identity—how, for her, photography is a way she was given her own camera at age eleven, almost two decades of life and a way of seeing and understanding Mexico and its beauty, would pass before she began seriously to pursue photography. First, rituals, challenges, and contradictions.1 at age twenty, she married the architect Manuel Rocha Diaz in 1962, Iturbide’s photographs go beyond documentary, anthropologi- and in the following years she became the mother of three children.2 cal, and ethnographic photography to express an intense personal It was not until 1969 that Iturbide, then twenty-seven, began and poetic lyricism about her country. They capture everyday life her formal education in the arts. It was a politically tumultuous time and its cultures, rituals, and religion. They also raise questions about in Mexico City, as it was in cities around the world. The year before, Mexican culture and inequality in telling a visual story of Mexico just as the capital prepared to host the 1968 Summer Olympics, since the late 1970s, a country in constant transition, defined by student demonstrations against government repression had ended tensions between urban and rural life and indigenous and modern with the Tlatelolco massacre, in which the government’s forceful life. Iturbide’s emphasis on indigenous populations serves as a use of the army and police to violently break up the protests resulted reminder of the paradox of Mexico, a nation extremely rich in nat- in the deaths of dozens if not hundreds of students and civilians, as ural resources, even home to one of the richest men in the world, well as the disappearance many. and yet a place where half of the population lives in poverty. Iturbide enrolled in Mexico City’s prestigious University Center Iturbide’s photographs question the politics of inequality in her for Film Studies at the National Autonomous University of Mexico native Mexico, among other incongruities, through her focus on with the goal of becoming a film director. Once there, while studying 9 with the modernist master photographer Manuel Álvarez Bravo, she Rally / Marcha política (pl. 3.19) is not immediately recognizable as changed her focus to still photography. Her determination to pursue political. It portrays a woman walking in a street with a group of other her degree in photography was a radical decision that shaped her women, just at the moment that her dark-colored dress and large scarf future, as did personal tragedy in 1970, when her daughter, Claudia, are being forcefully blown in the air, creating rhythmic and curvilinear died at the age of six. Photography became a form of therapy for patterns in the photograph. There is no overt sign that she is part of a Iturbide, offering her a way to seek comfort and understanding. political demonstration. Nevertheless, Iturbide knows that, in photog- Soon thereafter, Álvarez Bravo asked Iturbide to be his assistant, raphy, there is no such thing as political innocence when observing the or achichincle (a term equivalent to a bricklayer’s or carpenter’s helper) Other.5 As she has also said, all photography is photojournalism, and and she began to accompany him on his various photographic jour- certain forms of photo-reportage are closer to art than others.6 neys throughout Mexico. Iturbide explains, “I only observed him; I As a keen observer of Álvarez Bravo’s creative process, Iturbide didn’t collaborate. He let me watch him in the lab and when we went learned how to see, how to be patient and wait for a photograph, and out into the country.” They did not discuss her work, or his. They trav- above all, how to develop what is known as a poetic Mexican tempo—a eled together; she observed. Álvarez Bravo’s interest in the indigenous particularly Mexican philosophy of life and living.7 Hay tiempo (there is populations of Mexico, and his connections with those in Mexico’s time), she says Álvarez Bravo frequently reminded her.8 The notion of a artistic circles in the 1930s, influenced Iturbide. “Seeing and getting to Mexican tempo is also found in literature, in the writing of Octavio know Mexico a little through his eyes served me well,” she says.3 Paz, Carlos Fuentes, Juan Rulfo, and José Revueltas, for example. In Through their relationship, she gained a deeper knowledge of Mexico, Iturbide’s work this sense of tempo captures the complexities of the world, and herself. Álvarez Bravo always encouraged her to Mexican culture, informed by both revelations and mysteries and seen develop her own photographic language and follow her own path. She through the lens of both Western and ancient pre-Hispanic notions of also followed the work of contemporary photographers from other culture and tradition.9 In her photographs, her distinctive Mexican parts of the world and was particularly influenced by Josef Koudelka of tempo has been described as a sense of being “suspended in time” and Czechoslovakia and the American photographers Diane Arbus and also as expressing an “abundance of time.”10 This is not time in a his- William Eggleston. Other, more senior photographers who were deeply torical sense but time in the present, which means both being present influential were Christer Strömholm of Sweden, the Swiss-born and having taken the time to be present. American Robert Frank, and the French photographer Henri Iturbide’s connection with Álvarez Bravo also represents her Cartier-Bresson. own dialogue with the past, and with the history of Mexico as photo- The short apprenticeship and lifelong friendship between graphed. Álvarez Bravo’s artistic legacy, particularly on an international Iturbide and Álvarez Bravo had a major impact on Iturbide’s personal level, is unprecedented for a Mexican photographer. In the late twenti- and professional development. Once, after a publication used a photo- eth century he was referred to as the only photographer to have tran- graph of Iturbide’s to make a political statement unrelated to the con- scended Mexican borders. For many today, Álvarez Bravo’s images text of the picture, he warned her against taking deliberately “political” define Mexican photography.11 However, others, particularly in Mexico, photographs. He reminded her everything in life is political and said argue that the visual iconography of Mexico is dominated by an Anglo- that, to avoid such misappropriation she should not take pictures that and Eurocentric view of the country owing to Mexico’s influx of foreign could be seen as having a literal political meaning.4 Following his image makers. They contend that, through its photographic images, advice, Iturbide’s photographs became more symbolic than overtly Mexico has become part of a world map created from the Anglo- and political, even when she was specifically tasked with documenting Eurocentric perspectives, which qualify as exotic everything they do political events. For example, a 1984 photograph titled Political not know or cannot understand. Mexican curator and writer Alfonso Fig. 2. Cuna Woman | Mujer Cuna, Isla Tigre, Panama, 1974 10 Figs. 4–5. Contact sheets for Our Lady of the Iguanas | Nuestra Señora de las Iguanas, 1979 Early Work Iturbide’s early photographs reveal the hybrid cultural nature of Mexico. For Itur- bide early in her career, photography was more than just a means of becoming a keen observer of people, events, and the environment. It was a way to fully engage in what became her life’s work—the profound exploration of her country. And while still in school for cinema and under the wing of her mentor, she was already show- ing signs of her own personal visual vocabulary and symbolism through her connection with her subjects.

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