In this slender volume to accompany a J. Paul Getty Museum exhibition, photographer Iturbide captures Mexico’s matriarchal Zapotec village, Juchitán, from 1979 to 1988. (Those unfamiliar with Iturbide or this indigenous Oaxaca State culture may recognize these women’s elaborate lace costume and headdresses from Frida Kahlo’s paintings.) With closeup views of a closed society, Iturbide’s work is photography at its most intimate. Shot from below, images of women in festival dress and others such as the famous Nuestra Señora de las Iguanas
, a portrait of a woman sporting a hat of live iguanas, are also exemplars of photography at its most monumental. Iturbide’s subjects bathe, nurse, drink and sometimes pose with expressions that are as warm as the Mexico City native’s compositions are artful. At times these images haunt, such as in Cemetario
, where a woman carries firewood across a cemetery while swallows fleet around like so many spirits departing the earth. Mostly they delight as in Juchiteca con cerveza
, in which a smiling woman of ample girth imbibes and laughs with brio. A brief essay by Judith Keller provides additional background on Juchitán’s culture and Iturbide’s life. One hopes this slender volume is just the beginning of larger recognition for one of photography’s greatest. 50 b&w plates. (Jan.)
