Invitation for the opening “Other Lands. Graciela Iturbide | Manuel Álvarez Bravo”
Graciela Iturbide possesses the very special gift of blending into the environment she portrays. Her work is the result of observation and of the dialogue she has established with the world, as well as her complicity with photography.
Don Manuel was her great mentor: “Graciela, there’s no need to rush, there is time.”
Iturbide met Álvarez Bravo at the UNAM’s University Center of Cinematic Studies in 1969, where she began her photographic practice after enrolling in the courses taught there by Don Manuel.
This encounter led her to exchange cinema for photography and to collaborate with “el Maestro” for a year; it also marked the beginning of a friendship that would last until Don Manuel’s passing.
Everything begins in Mexico, everything begins with Álvarez Bravo…
Her first photographic assignment came in 1974, when she traveled to Panama to photograph General Omar Torrijos. At the same time, she began a long series of journeys to Indigenous communities in Mexico, leading her to produce renowned photo essays in the Sonoran Desert, in Puebla, in Oaxaca…
Between 1980’s, 1990’s and onward, she traveled to other continents in search of the symbolic and the everyday: Latin America, Asia, Africa, Europe. She has defined her work as “photographing as an excuse for knowing.” For her, traveling is not merely physical movement, but a process of cultural and spiritual immersion.
“Other lands” brings together two pillars of Mexican photography in the Coyoacán house where their countless conversations about photography, art, travel, and life itself once resonated. Here, forgotten or previously unseen works by Don Manuel—still promoted by Casa MAB—enter into dialogue with Graciela’s fresh perspective. These images evoke conversations of the past, open windows onto other worlds, where wonder, curiosity, discovery, and the sensitivity of both artists converge.
Casa MAB joins the recent celebrations of Graciela’s work, which has become part of the pulse of universal culture. Alongside Don Manuel, her gaze—from a real Mexico, free of exoticism or labels—has transcended into other horizons and integrated them into her vision of the world.
The exhibition “Other Lands. Graciela Iturbide | Manuel Álvarez Bravo” opened last saturday, february 14th, at Casa MAB, and will be open to the public from february 15th to may 24th 2026.