Graciela Iturbide: Juchitan de Las Mujeres 1979-1989

by Mario Bellatin (Contributor), Elena Poniatowska, Graciela Iturbide (Photographer)

Mexico-based Graciela Iturbide, a 2008 Hasselblad Award winner, is one of Latin America's most influential photographers. Juchitan de Las Mujeres is a reprisal of her 1989 masterwork, comprising ten years of travels along the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, near Southern Oaxaca, where she lived among the pre-Columbian Zapotec culture indigenous to the remote region. With new design and excellent production quality, this volume, which features many previously unpublished photographs, is a visual record of the daily life of an ancient culture in flux, through portraits of its people and glimpses into the Zapotecs' attitudes toward sexuality, ritual, death and the role of women. Revealing some of the finest examples of Iturbide's enduring themes--the clash between urban and rural life, ancient and modern life--it includes a foreword by celebrated Mexican novelist, Mario Bellatín.

Genres: Photography, Nonfiction

104 pages, Hardcover

First published October 31, 2009

About the author

Mario Bellatin grew up in Peru as the son of Peruvian parents. He spent two years studying theology at the seminary Santo Toribio de Mogrovejo and graduated from the University of Lima. In 1987, Bellatin moved to Cuba, where he studied screenplay writing at the International Film School Latinoamericana. On his return to Mexico in 1995, he became the director of the Department of Literature and Humanities at the University of the Cloister of Sor Juana and became a member of the National System of Creators of Mexico from 1999 to 2005. He is currently the director of the School of Writers Dynamics in Mexico City.

Reviews

[Adriana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Me fascina la obra de esta mujer que también es pájaro.

[Córdova O'neil · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sobre un cemento con dos gallinas degolladas, la pintura roja me fascina y esas cabezas dormidas me tranquilizan.

Aún me falta el relato de Poniatowska, pero el texto de Bellatin compensó todo: suena como un circulo.

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

I definitely got a lot more from the Getty exhibit book.

This thankfully has a translation of Poniatowska's accompanying essay, El hombre del pito dulce, which honestly doesn't add much because it is mostly an impressionistic bunch of claptrap.

There are no captions, no dates, no anything that identifies pictures or their contents. Nor did the essay did not address a single photograph. Since I had already read the Getty book I could tell when it semi-obliquely referenced one of them but it was never explicit.

The photos are still Iturbide's though. If you are just learning about Iturbide (as I recently did via the graphic novel biography) then I'd recommend the Getty exhibit book, which will provide some much needed context.
Iturbide, Graciela, and Judith Keller. Graciela Iturbide Juchitán ; [Published to Accompany the Exhibition “The Goat’s Dance: Photographs by Graciela Iturbide”, at the J. Paul Getty Museum, December 18, 2007 - April 13, 2008. Los Angeles, Calif: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2008.