San Francisco – The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is celebrating the work of acclaimed Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide with a new exhibition titled Graciela Iturbide: Between Two Worlds. The show, which runs through November 29, 2026, offers visitors a chance to experience Iturbide’s richly layered photographs that capture the liminal spaces of daily life, from intimate domestic scenes to vibrant community rituals.
From Frida Kahlo’s Sealed Bathroom to a Lifetime of Liminal Moments
After Frida Kahlo’s death, her husband Diego Rivera sealed a bathroom in La Casa Azul for more than fifty years. In 2006, Iturbide was granted rare access to document the space, producing the project “El baño de Frida.” The series reveals Kahlo’s medical equipment, personal objects, and even a poster of Stalin, offering a stark reminder of the painter’s chronic illness.
Assistant curator of photography Delphine Sims explains, “Iturbide could capture it in a way that feels like a time capsule. It’s a powerful reminder of what it meant for Kahlo to live with chronic illness.”
Exploring Dualities Through the Lens
The exhibition is organized thematically rather than chronologically, opening with “Hay Tiempo,” a tribute to Mexican photography legend Manuel Álvarez Bravo, whom Iturbide calls her maestro. Throughout the galleries, Iturbide’s fascination with thresholds—between life and death, representation and abstraction, male and female—unfolds in striking visual narratives.
One of her most celebrated images, “Our Lady of Iguanas,” emerged from a project in Juchitán, Oaxaca, where she documented the region’s bustling women‑run markets and the animals that share those spaces. From tortoises in Kahlo’s bathtub to hairless dogs at carnivals, birds, goats, and even the solemn procession of an infant’s burial, the exhibition underscores her ongoing dialogue with mortality.
Immersion and Community Connection
Iturbide’s method goes beyond observation; she immerses herself in the communities she photographs. She lived with the Seri people of Mexico’s Sonoran Desert for over a month, and the women there painted her face in traditional style—a moment she describes as “beautiful” and welcoming. She also spent time with the East Los Angeles White Fence Gang, attending their weddings and forming genuine bonds.
Her global travels have taken her to India, Madagascar, Panama, Italy, the United States, and Japan, yet the core of her work remains rooted in Mexican culture and the everyday miracles it holds.
Surrealism Questioned, Dream‑Like Vision Embraced
Although Iturbide’s photographs often possess a dream‑like quality, she rejects the label “surrealist.” Sims notes, “She is very clear that her photographs are not surreal, and she references Frida Kahlo’s own critique of being described as surreal. For her, surrealism is a distinct literary movement, and Mexico isn’t surreal—it’s just the way of life there.”
Nonetheless, her work does reflect a belief in the prophetic power of dreams. After dreaming of a man who promised to “plant birds in the earth,” she later encountered that man in real life, reinforcing the symbolic role of birds as messengers of the soul.
A Celebration of Artistic Legacy
Iturbide first exhibited at SFMOMA in 1990, marking her inaugural solo show in the United States when the museum was located on Van Ness Avenue. The current exhibition brings together a breadth of her career, from early self‑portraits to later conceptual pieces such as “Eyes to Fly With,” where she holds a live bird in one eye and a dead one in the other.
“Photography is a pretext for knowing,” Iturbide has said, inviting viewers to step into privileged interior spaces—whether the sealed bathroom of Frida Kahlo or the imagined realms of our own imagination.
The exhibition runs at SFMOMA until November 29, 2026. Admission details and ticket information are available on the museum’s website.
Original reporting: Mission Local — read the source article.
