“Heliotropo 37,” at Paris’s Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, is named immediately after the tackle of Graciela Iturbide’s Mexico City studio, a spot vibrantly outfitted with people art and crops within a brick fortress designed by her son, Mauricio Rocha (he did the exhibition scenography, way too). “Helio indicates mild tropo implies a little something that goes close to: It just so occurs I’m on a street whose title completely corresponds with photography,” Iturbide marveled in excess of Zoom even though smoking from her couch. On perspective from February 12 to Might 29, 2022, the survey spans two hundred visuals, as well as an exhibition-distinct commission. In her winsome, gravelly voice, she mentioned the treatment she took photographing insular communities and her the latest geological obsession.
I Really don’t Check out TO Improve THE Globe with my photographs. I consider photographs of what I like, what I’m attracted to . . . maybe that is egocentric. I never intend to do far more than photograph what I find persuasive. I discuss with folks to uncover out the area legends and tales, remarkable tales. I originally wished to develop into a writer, when I was younger, but supplied the conservatism in households like mine, it wasn’t feasible. I constantly examine a good deal. There is a Puerto Rican writer, Luce Lopez, who delved into the hidden correspondence between Juan de la Cruz and Rumi, just one of the key Sufi writers, throughout the time of the Inquisition. They’ve motivated me, as very well as Pasolini and Brassaï.
When one pictures mainly “unknown” locations, there is normally a danger that you are heading to exoticize the topic. I’m very preoccupied by this: I try out to under no circumstances fall into folklore. There is a serious hazard in pictures that it’s going to “other.” This is why I consider to be austere. When I did self-portraits integrating snakes and fish and birds, the photographs corresponded to my point out of intellect due to the fact I was dealing with a separation. Folklore is authorized when it’s about myself, but I would under no circumstances use this kind of performativity with topics: I take them as is. Like a photograph I took of a Juchitán female with iguanas on her head she represented a type of Medusa. People today manufactured sculptures and ceramics of her, and she grew to become an icon of her village and location. But the image was taken totally by opportunity. I would never have dared to question her to position the iguanas on her head—they had been previously there. But on my possess deal with, I can put regardless of what I want. Why did I put a fish in my mouth? I have no strategy. If Freud was alive, I would definitely inquire him!
At present, I focus on landscapes. I’m just again from Lanzarote, in the Canary Islands, the place I was participating in a whole lot with my very own shadow. And I was absolutely fascinated by the volcanoes, the lava, and the sea. I put in a whole thirty day period using photos of lava: It has its own independence. It was like seeing how lifestyle could have been at the extremely starting, straight soon after the Big Bang. In point, the previous fantastic exhibition I observed was in Barcelona about the Huge Bang. It was unbelievably serendipitous: Following three weeks in Lanzarote, where by I’d turn out to be genuinely intrigued in evolution, I then took place on this exhibition. Daily life sales opportunities you to locations that fit! Now I want to go to the Galapagos, where Darwin labored. The practical experience in Lanzrote activated my imagination. I felt like a witness to how the planet could have begun. I was at Las Palmas, in which the volcano was active—I wasn’t permitted much too shut. But now I want to go to other areas to photograph lava.
I never get the job done on a single project. I sort photographs into boxes in my studio in accordance to themes, and make them up little by little. I have ongoing projects, like a single on botanical gardens. The initial photograph I took was in Oaxaca. When I was in Lanzarote, the nearby botanical gardens highlighted an wonderful assortment of cacti. Most of them were from Mexico [laughter], but they appeared diverse there.
I invested the pandemic seeking as a result of my negatives. It’s a never ever-ending perform-in-development: I retain using photos of items that transfer me, then continuously revise and increase and get away. I continue to do analogue photography—I don’t know how to use my digital digicam. I’m utilized to observing the world by way of the viewfinder. I like the ritual of taking the photos, creating the movie, studying the call sheets.
I in no way just take color photos apart from for commissioned get the job done. But Alexis Fabry, the principal curator of this Foundation Cartier demonstrate, questioned me to do a smaller color sequence, and I did. The photographs ended up taken in Tecali, not considerably from my home. I decided on stones simply because they would be tranquil, not also vibrant. I did the whole sequence in one morning. I gave in excess of the negatives. I have not observed the prints yet, but I have great faith.
— As explained to to Sarah Moroz
