Graciela Iturbide
Born in 1942 · Mexico
Connecting everyday life and the sign.
The story
Graciela Iturbide studied cinema before turning to photography, notably alongside Manuel Álvarez Bravo. Her stays with different Mexican communities gave rise to a body of work in which rituals, animals and everyday lives meet. Her photographs are neither simple ethnographic inventories nor entirely constructed fictions. They leave room for mystery within situations and relationships actually encountered.
Understanding the work
Examine how an object or animal becomes a sign without imposing a single interpretation. Retain the communities’ context rather than reducing every scene to visual strangeness.
Key works and series
Juchitán de las Mujeres; Mujer ángel; Nuestra Señora de las Iguanas; birds.
Sources & further exploration
Works in collections.
10 recordsPhotographs to explore on museum and library websites, with titles, dates and processes. Each link opens the collection record and its image where one is available.
- MoMA · 1979
Mujer ángel, Desierto de Sonora (Angel Woman, Sonoran Desert)
Gelatin silver print, printed 1986
- MoMA · 1976
Volatin, San Martin de Ticajete, Oaxaca, Mexico (Merry-Go-Round, Saint Martin Tilcajete, Oaxaca)
Gelatin silver print
- MoMA · 1979
Autorretrato como Seri, Desierto de Sonora (Self-Portrait as Seri, Sonoran Desert)
Gelatin silver print
