{"id":491993,"date":"2026-10-10T22:54:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-10T22:54:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/491993\/"},"modified":"2026-10-10T22:54:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-10T22:54:13","slug":"sfmoma-highlights-career-of-acclaimed-mexican-photographer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/491993\/","title":{"rendered":"SFMOMA highlights career of acclaimed Mexican photographer"},"content":{"rendered":"

After Frida Kahlo died, Diego Rivera placed some of her belongings in one of the bathrooms of La Casa Azul and sealed it. It remained that way for half a century until a\u00a0 specific photographer was given access to document its contents: Graciela Iturbide.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cShe could capture it in a kind of way that it was a time capsule,\u201d said Delphine Sims, assistant curator of photography at SFMOMA. \u201cIt\u2019s a stark reminder of what it meant for Kahlo to live with chronic illness.\u201d Iturbide\u2019s 2006 project \u201cEl ba\u00f1o de Frida\u201d captures everything from her medical equipment to her posters of Stalin in an intimate exposure of the painter.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AGraciela Iturbide, El ba\u00f1o de Frida, Coyoac\u00e1n, Ciudad de M\u00e9xico (Frida\u2019s Bathroom, Coyoac\u00e1n, Mexico City), 2006; Collection Fundaci\u00f3n Mapfre; \u00a9 Graciela Iturbide <\/p>\n

Iturbide\u2019s dream-like, often hallucinatory oeuvre spans an era as long as that bathroom remained sealed. With the new exhibition<\/a>, \u201cGraciela Iturbide: Between Two Worlds,\u201c SFMOMA shares atmospheric and sensuous work by the Mexico City-born photographer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s really interested in uncanny moments of everyday life, how the fantastical emerges, and the way we can see almost dream-like narratives coalesce,\u201c Sims said. While the exhibition doesn\u2019t cover her entire career, it includes much of her best and most well-known work.<\/p>\n

Organized thematically rather than chronologically, the show opens with \u201cHay Tiempo,\u201d a section honoring the influence of famed Mexican photographer Manuel \u00c1lvarez Bravo, whom Iturbide called her maestro. Similar to Kahlo, Iturbide is fascinated by the animals of Juchit\u00e1n, a project from which emerged one of her best-known photographs: \u201cOur Lady of Iguanas.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AGraciela Iturbide, La Nuestra Se\u00f1ora de las Iguanas, Juchit\u00e1n, Oaxaca, M\u00e9xico (Our Lady of the Iguanas, Juchit\u00e1n, Oaxaca, Mexico), 1979; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, gift of the artist; \u00a9 Graciela Iturbide<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the first time Iturbide has been a focus at SFMOMA. In 1990, the museum gave the photographer her first solo exhibition in the U.S. when it was still on Van Ness Avenue.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Iturbide doesn\u2019t consider herself surrealist, despite the dream-like compositions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is very clear that her photographs are not surreal, and she references Frida Kahlo\u2019s own critique of being described as surreal,\u201d Sims said. \u201cIt\u2019s clear that for her, surrealism is a distinct literary movement and Mexico isn\u2019t surreal \u2014 it\u2019s just the way of life there,\u201d Sims said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As the exhibition title suggests, Iturbide is preoccupied with exploring thresholds: between life and death, representation and abstraction, male and female, celebration and mourning.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yet one could be forgiven for the temptation to use the surrealist label. Iturbide believed in the prophetic power of dreams; after having had a dream in which a man told her he would \u201cplant birds in the earth,\u201d she believed she manifested the man when she saw him in real life the next day. Birds, in turn, became a central focus of her art, unsurprising since winged creatures are often associated with death \u2014 sacred messengers representing the soul or spirit taking flight.<\/p>\n

Iturbide often photographed into a trance-like state, as with the image \u201cMujer \u00e1ngel,\u201d a photograph she claims not to remember taking. Numerous dualities animate the composition: the modernity of a boom box juxtaposed with traditional garb, the active presence of the woman and the unknown beyond the precipice of a cliff, a figure who is turned away from the viewer yet also revealing herself.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AGraciela Iturbide, Mujer \u00e1ngel, desierto de Sonora, M\u00e9xico (Angel Woman, Sonora Desert, Mexico), 1979; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, purchase through a gift of Jane Reed and the Accessions Committee Fund \u00a9 Graciela Iturbide<\/p>\n

\"AGraciela Iturbide, El gallo, Juchit\u00e1n, M\u00e9xico (The Rooster, Juchit\u00e1n, Mexico), 1986; Collection Fundaci\u00f3n Mapfre; \u00a9 Graciela Iturbide<\/p>\n

Running through the entire exhibition is the strong presence of animals, whether the tortoise in Kahlo\u2019s bathtub, a hairless dog at a carnival or the many birds. The women-run markets of Juchit\u00e1n are a natural setting for animals \u2014 from roosters to alligators, from crabs to fish \u2014 and an entire series is devoted to the slaughtering of goats.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The fascination with death invades her work, whether it\u2019s bloodied chickens to be sold or the burial procession of an infant at the Dolores Hidalgo cemetery. Her preoccupation only intensified after the sudden death of her young daughter, a heartbreak she never recovered from. As her work takes a more conceptual turn, the presentation of death evolves, like with the self-portrait \u201cEyes to Fly With,\u201d in which she holds up a live bird to one eye and a dead one to the other.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Iturbide practiced a form of immersion photography, becoming enmeshed with the communities she was documenting. She lived with the Seri people of Mexico\u2019s Sonoran Desert for over a month and became so integrated into the community the women asked to paint her face according to their traditional customs. It was an act that led to one of her earliest self-portraits.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a really beautiful moment for her where she felt liked and welcomed into the community,\u201d Sims said. She also lived with the East Los Angeles White Fence Gang, becoming so close with the group she attended their weddings. Traveling the world, she crafted images in India, Madagascar, Panama, Italy, the U.S. and Japan as well as Mexico.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When Iturbide photographed Kahlo\u2019s bathroom, she climbed inside her bathtub and photographed her feet against the end in a direct echo of Kahlo\u2019s famous work, \u201cWhat the Water Gave Me.\u201d Iturbide doesn\u2019t only photograph: she immerses, both literally and metaphorically.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cPhotography is a pretext for knowing,\u201d she has said. Knowing, here, is in the deepest sense. By focusing on the liminal, Iturbide invites us into a privileged interior space, whether Frida Kahlo\u2019s bathroom or the contours of her \u2014 and our \u2014 own imagination.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cGraciela Iturbide: Between Two Worlds,\u201c<\/a> through Nov. 29, 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After Frida Kahlo died, Diego Rivera placed some of her belongings in one of the bathrooms of La…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":491994,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[2311,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-491993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-museums","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/491994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}