Fondation Cartier Presents the First Major Exhibition Devoted to Graciela Iturbide in France

Although the discourse on photography has been predominantly western-centric, now and then emerge events that try to change this and to show that the world of the so-called margins and the global south has equally exciting and valuable production that reveals new perspectives and traditions.

Among the recent announcements, the forthcoming exhibition in Paris of the celebrated Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide draws attention with its excellent selection and unique curatorial choice that combines a retrospective and a portrait of the artists in one show. 

The exhibition-portrait at the Fondation Cartier brings together over 200 of Iturbide's photographs, from the most iconic to the more recent ones, including a series created especially for the exhibition. 

Graciela Iturbide Photography

Graciela Iturbide is the winner of the Eugene Smith Memorial Fund in 1987 and the Hasselblad Award in 2008, a photography's highest distinction. Her impressive body of work spanning over fifty years oscillates between documentary and a poetic gaze. 

In her own words, she always "looked for the surprise in the ordinary" that could be found anywhere in the world. In her most famous works, she captured Seri Indians, Juchitán women, and various ancestral communities and traditions in Mexico, but was also devoted to presenting landscapes and objects. The exhibition focuses on both aspects of her oeuvre, providing a fresh perspective on her work. 

The exhibition takes its title - Heliotropo 37 - from the street where the artist's studio is located, in the Coyoacán district of Mexico City. Her son, Mauricio Rocha, designed the building resembling a tower of bricks in 2016. Besides showing Iturbide's work, the show is a unique opportunity to glimpse into her studio through a series of photographs by Pablo López Luz, documenting this singular working and living space.

Poetry and Imagination 

Iturbide was introduced to photography in the 1970s, when she started traveling with Manuel Àlvarez Bravo and observed his work. He would visit villages and Mexican festivals in search of the right image, waiting for something to happen, and invisible to the subjects he captured. He became Iturbide's mentor and shared with her his approach - deeply humanist and attentive to moments and people he encountered. 

Following in the footsteps of her mentor, Iturbide travelled across the globe, on the lookout for the moments that convey "a touch of poetry and imagination." The retrospective in Paris includes a number of works she made during her travels, from Europe to South America and Asia, between the 1970s and 1990s. 

Among the emblematic series are Los que viven en la arena (Those who live in the sand, 1978), Juchitán de las mujeres (1979-89), and White Fence Gang series (1986-89). These explore marginalized communities living in different social and political circumstances, from the Seri Community in the Sonora Desert to Zapotec women and gangs of Mexican origin living in Los Angeles and Tijuana.

Heliotropo 37 at the Fondation Cartier

For Inturbide, photography was a ritual that allowed her to go observe and capture, with her camera, "the most mythical part of man," as she explained. 

Knowledge is twofold: when you travel, you discover things both outside and inside yourself, through your solitude.

The exhibition Heliotropo 37 will be on view at the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain in Paris from February 12th until May 29th, 2022. 

Featured image: Graciela Iturbide - Pájaros en el poste de luz, Carretera a Guanajuato, México,1990. Images courtesy of Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain.