The Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide, Princess of Asturias Award for the Arts 2025, said that terms such as ‘surrealism’ or ‘magical realism’ are “labels” that Europeans put on Latin American artistic manifestations and that do not correspond to reality.
In Oviedo, where on Friday he received the award in a ceremony presided over by the kings of Spain, Felipe VI and Letizia, Iturbide (Mexico City, 1942) rejected that his photography is “neorealist” or “surrealist,” as it has sometimes been described, and also claimed not to have “this thing they call magical realism.”
“I am going to say it with great sadness, but I think they are labels that Europeans give to us Latin Americans, a thousand apologies, but they tend to give us labels that do not correspond to us, I am Mexican, my country is wonderful and it is what I photograph,” she stressed.
The photographer narrated how, on the occasion of collecting an award in France, she was told that her photography was ‘surrealist’ or that it was related to ‘magical realism’.
“I told them, you have described Vargas Llosa, García Márquez, Rulfo, Onetti, as writers of magical realism and read them now and you will see that they have absolutely nothing to do with each other,” he argued.
A recognition to Latin American photographers
Iturbide, who claimed the need to recognize more the work of Latin American photographers, assured that although the award was given to her, she will share it with “all” her Latin American colleagues who “should deserve it” because many of them are “great photographers.”
In this regard, the photographer pointed out that the only Latin American photographer who received the Princess of Asturias Award for Arts before her was the Brazilian Sebastião Salgado, whose death “curiously” took place on the day she was informed that she had won, which made it a “bittersweet” day.
Analogue photography as ‘ritual’
On the other hand, Iturbide pointed out that, for her, taking photos with her analog camera is “a ritual” and that she likes to continue “working with paper,” developing her rolls and “discovering” what she has taken.
“In Mexico I can still find materials, edit materials, although not many, to be able to continue doing my photography, which is a ritual for me, developing the film, seeing my contacts and being able to choose the photos I have taken,” he said.
“For me there are two decisive moments, when I take by surprise what I see and when with surprise I like or reject what I have taken,” he added.
Iturbide predicted that although the world of photography will “continue to change,” analog photography will “continue to exist,” because many photographers who were dedicated to digital “have returned to analog,” although “any medium is good” and everything depends “on the result of the eye of the person taking the photo.”
There is only one photograph that he could not take.
Likewise, she confessed that there is “only one” photograph that she could not take and would have liked to, that of an “older lady dressed as a bride” who was on her way to the wedding in “a small town in Mexico”, with her “older” mother holding up the train of her dress.
As she narrated, it was a scene that “was like Italian neorealism,” as if she were “watching a movie, or by Pasolini, or by Fellini,” but she was “so amazed” by that scene that she couldn’t take the photograph.
Regarding her next work, she revealed that she feels “fascinated” with the Spanish archipelago of the Canary Islands (Atlantic), where she was recently able to photograph elements such as “the volcanoes”, “the lava” or “the cacti” and where she plans to return soon.
With information from EFE.
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