...we were lucky enough to have a exhibit of Mexican photographers and others that photographed in Mexico about a year ago at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. One that I really liked was Graciela Iturbide.
I remember seeing something like that in SFMOMA a few years ago. There were photos by Alvarez Bravo, and, among other things, a few portraits of Frida Kahlo by his wife, Lola. I don't know why that should surprise me but it did.
And then there was Iturbide. Her photography is like a force of nature, no other way to put it. There's considerable overlap in her work and her mentor's, though she makes women the discursive focal point with respect to questions of
mexicanidad and sexuality. Alvarez Bravo is more gender neutral by comparison. Her photos appear also more suggestive of forces irrational, always threatening to erupt violently, uncontrollably. There's often criticism within mexican photography for
pintoresquismo and exoticism and perhaps one could take her to task for that but her photography appears more sophisticated than the cases where these elements serve solely commercial purposes and preconditioned responses.
I have just one book of hers (
Juchitan) and at some point I thought I'd get a couple of other but never did as my photographic priorities took a turn. This discussion, I admit, is getting me itchy to look up for some of her other books though.
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