Graciela Iturbide in "Investigation" - Season 7 - "Art in the Twenty-First Century" | Art21

GRACIELA ITURBIDE:
- I take photographs very fast.

I follow my intuition
and what surprises me.

I never use artificial lights
or flash.

I always use my camera,
just like this.

Frida kahlo's house has been
photographed many times.

It is beautiful to photograph,
but I am always trying

To encounter something
that has not been seen.

There's going to be an exhibit
in Denmark

of Frida's entire life.

I'm going to show some photos
that I took in color.

This is the robe
which she wore in the hospital,

and there, she kept painting.

This is part blood, part paint.

The director of this museum
gave me permission

to photograph Frida's bathroom.

I took the photos
in black and white,

which is more my way
of expressing myself.

Thousands and thousands
of people come to this museum.

She's still a figure
of sainthood.

I am not a Frida maniac.

Despite her suffering,
she painted,

and this is what I admire.

My photography about pain
is very Catholic,

very related
to my Catholic education.

This is Frida's bathroom.

This is a self-portrait
I took of myself in the tub

after my foot operation.

She has a picture called
what the water gives me

that has her feet like this,
but with water.

I have done
various self-portraits.

This is a self-portrait of me
in Trotsky's house.

I am very close friends with
Trotsky's great-granddaughter.

When I go there,
I get a little bit depressed,

because they left the house
with all those bullet holes,

with a lot
of political memories.

We were 13 kids.

I'm the oldest.

Very, very Catholic.

I was educated by nuns.

I think that I'm the only one
in my family

That isn't Catholic anymore.

Now I'm an atheist.

Mm, let's say agnostic.

My father used to take
pictures of us

in black and white
when we were kids.

I used to steal the photographs.

And sometimes I got punished,

because I was always
opening that drawer

and taking the photographs.

And I made my own albums

so from there on, I liked
black-and-white photography.

I wanted to be a writer
when I was a child,

but I got married very young.

I got married when I was 19.

I was 26 years old when
I started to study cinema,

with kids already.

My entry into film school
was fantastic,

because Manuel,
Manuel Alvarez Bravo,

was teaching there.

Nobody went to his classes,

because everybody wants
to become a film director.

But at the third session,
he asked me,

"Do you want to be
my assistant?"

"I would love to.

It's my pleasure."

And that is how I got to know
this wonderful man.

I always felt
Manuel Alvarez Bravo's poetry.

Sometimes he only placed his
camera at a landscape he liked

and he waited
for something to happen.

And he always said,
"There is time.

There is time."

It was a real privilege
to have found him,

because he not only taught me
about photography;

he taught me about life.

Alvarez Bravo focused
on tree trunks

to create abstractions.

When I remember that he shot it,
I say, "No.

"The influence is too great.

I better not."

But since I saw that there was
a beautiful light...

This is Juchitan.

I went to Juchitan

Because Francisco Toledo,
the painter, is from there.

He invited me to do work

and display it
in the culture house

So the people could see
we weren't just taking

but that we were also
giving back.

I was there, more or less,
six years.

I would go and come back,

and I was able
to immerse myself

and have the cooperation
of the people of Juchitan.

This is Toledo's aunt.

In Juchitan,
homosexuality is permitted.

It's one of the very few places
in Mexico that's very liberal.

Look, here's Magnolia.

I was buying beer
with the women,

and Magnolia said, "Ooh,
my love, can you photograph me?"

I told her, "Yes, of course."

Here's the moment
where she's putting makeup on.

I went to the Juchitan market.

I went there because I knew

that the women would be
more accepting of me,

so I sold tomatoes with them.

I saw everything they did.

Then this woman came.

Her name is Sulveda.

12 photos.

Only two iguanas remained alive.

They are sold to people to eat.

And I called this photo
Our Lady of Iguanas.

Again, my religiousness
comes out.

This work, I did
with the Seris.

They are totally different
people from the Juchitecas.

With the Seris,
everything is very severe,

because they live in the desert.

I lived with them for a time,

not as long as I did
in Juchitan.

These works were done
more or less at the same time.

I started them in 1979.

I did another book
about the slaughter of goats

by indigenous people who, for
generations upon generations,

worked for rich Spanish
employers.

They were paid very little.

And they always
crossed themselves

before killing the goats.

That's why I gave the book
the title

In the Name of the Father.

In each work,
I find different things.

Here, I found
this religious part.

It's like the sacrifice
of Abraham.

I really like to photograph
intense things.

This is a work that I did
with the Cholos.

They are
a very marginalized people

that were born
in the United States,

and I had the opportunity
to live and work with them

for a short while.

I began working with the Cholos
in Los Angeles in the '80s.

And from there,
I went to tijuana.

All Cholo influence.

I wanted to do
an investigation.

But what happened is that
I was only there two weeks.

I returned later.

It made me very depressed.

I'm very interested

in how a Mexican goes
to the United States,

because for them,
this is the American dream,

because here in Mexico,
there aren't jobs.

What happens is, they don't know
what they're going to find.

I went to do a tour
of the southern United States.

It was the first time that I was
taking landscape photographs.

I began to enter
into the landscape.

I began learning about life

in the United States,

Where there are no people
on the streets,

which is different from Mexico.

And now I mostly only photograph
landscapes.

I went to India.

The first trip was about people.

Since then,
I've gone four more times.

And now I made a book
titled There is No One,

because there is no one.

There are only objects.

There are only landscapes.

I've always wanted to photograph
the abstract

and now the rebars,
the buildings,

things I never imagined
photographing.

I just finished a project
in L.A. earlier this year.

I was in L.A.
for a month and a half.

It is called Criba del Cielo,
Sieve of Sky.

It is like a grid, a net
where the light passes through

or something that passes
through the brain.

It is with the text
of Fabienne Bradu,

who is a close friend of mine
and a very good writer.

I have always said that for me,

the camera is just a pretext
for knowing the world.

I am interested
in what my eyes see

and what my heart feels.

Why grids?

It means prison,
something like that,

Something that is enclosed.

Maybe I feel like
I'm in prison myself.

Maybe I also feel locked up.

Maybe my camera is liberating me
from those feelings.

It's what touches me,
what moves me.

That is what I photograph.

- Hola, Aami.

Como estas?

- I photograph my grandchildren
all the time.

Everybody has a photo album.

- [speaking spanish]

The interesting thing
about her work

is that it always
reinvents itself.

It's a work that has a huge
opportunity to not repeat,

to not generate a style

but, more importantly,
to search for or be an example

for what human beings can do
with their lives.

- I am a composer,
an interdisciplinary artist

thanks to my mother,
of course.

Also to my father
but mainly–

the rebel part,
I got it from my mother.

[all speaking Spanish]

Also, my neuroses,
I got it from my mother too.

[laughs]

- I
studied architecture

thinking that afterwards

I would be dedicated
to making movies,

a master's degree in film,

or that I would start
taking photos.

And when I finished my degree,

sure that I would change paths
or go to another place,

it was my mother who asked me
to design her house.

That's the house that we're in.

The important thing
is not the architecture.

it's the investigation one has.

And that, I learned as much
from my mother as my father,

via my mother
from Alvarez Bravo.

Architecture is a tool.

The important thing
is investigation.

- [speaking spanish]

[laughter]

- I have a small exhibition
that is up at the Tate Modern.

I never imagined
being in the Tate Modern.

It is strange,
because photography

has always been
the redheaded stepchild

of the artistic disciplines.

And all of a sudden,

to be so close
to such important painters,

it's strange.

But I'm very happy.

I think that any photographer
is an investigator.

Photography is a pretext
to know the world, to know life,

to know yourself.

If I were not a photographer,
I would be very, very badly off.

I would have a very bad time,

because creativity is needed
to keep moving forward.

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