Exhibitions
When the Light Speaks: Graciela Iturbide's Poetic View of Mexico
The Casa de México Foundation in Spain, located in the heart of Madrid, is hosting the exhibition "Cuando habla la luz" ( When the Light Speaks ) by renowned Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide until September 14, 2025. This exhibition, part of the official PHotoESPAÑA 2025 program, invites the public to explore the visual and poetic universe of one of the most emblematic voices in contemporary photography.
Sonoran Desert.
Until September 14, the exhibition includes some of her most iconic images. In them, the photographer performs a double operation: she looks at herself and looks at the outside world. Iturbide transforms the everyday into images of fascinating restlessness, generating a constant tension between reality and dreams, between life and death.
Curated by Juan Rafael Coronel Rivera, the exhibition brings together 115 photographs captured between 1972 and 2017, spanning four decades of the Mexican artist's career. These snapshots reflect a distinctive identity, such as the use of black and white, the themes of everyday life and Mexican culture, an interest in ritual and symbolism with careful composition and framing, and the exploration of marginalized or invisible themes.
Poetic sensibility and the use of black and white fill the Casa de México Foundation in Spain. Much of Iturbide's work is presented in black and white, a decision that not only accentuates textures, shapes, and light contrasts in a striking way, but also gives her images an almost timeless quality. This monochromatic aesthetic allows each photograph to unfold its poetic and symbolic charge with greater intensity, inviting the viewer to linger on the details and perceive the depth of the themes she addresses, from the everyday to the ritual, and from life itself to its inevitable tensions with death.
The exhibition includes photographs from the series Frida's Bathroom , which documented the reopening of a bathroom in the Casa Azul in Coyoacán, where Frida Kahlo's objects and documents were kept. Iturbide's mastery draws on the teachings of Manuel Álvarez Bravo, who showed her how to immerse herself in the poetic time that dwells in those who silently make each moment of photography possible.
Magnolia.
