Graciela Iturbide at Taka Ishii Gallery
By Billy Kung
In an exhibition titled “Graciela Iturbide 1969–1990” at Taka Ishii Gallery’s dedicated photography and film space in Tokyo, 19 works by prolific Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide are currently on view providing an introduction to Iturbide’s extensive body of work photographing marginalized indigenous communities in Mexico. The exhibition marks the first appearance of her photographs at Taka Ishii Gallery and apart from her participation in the 2013 Chobi Mela VII International Festival of Photography in Dhaka, where she was endowed the Lifetime Achievement Award, Iturbide’s works have rarely received exposure in Asia.
Born in Mexico City in 1942, Iturbide grew up in a large conservative family of 12 siblings. As a child, she found a love for poetry and began looking for it everywhere as she grew up; be it in music, literature or films such as those by Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky. In 1969, Iturbide enrolled in cinematography at the Universitario de Estudios Cinematograficos of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, to pursue her dream of becoming a film director. It was during this period that two incidents occurred in her life that would eventually make a profound contribution to her career in photography: first was the death of her daughter at the age of six in an accident in 1970 just as Iturbide had begun experimenting in photography; second, around the same time, was her recognition by Mexican photographer Manuel Alvarez Bravo. Iturbide was a student of Bravo when he recognized her talent—she was soon made the senior's assistant and would go on, for the next two years, to travel with him to areas inhabited by Mexico’s indigenous people.
