There are photographs that simply record life, and then there are photographs that inhabit it, that breathe and pulse with the rhythms of human experience. Graciela Iturbide’s work belongs unequivocally to the latter category, transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary. For the first time in New York, the International Center of Photography presents Serious Play, a comprehensive retrospective spanning five decades of the Mexican photographer’s career. Opening this October and running through 12 January 2026, the exhibition gathers nearly 200 images that navigate the intersections of culture, ritual, and imagination, confirming Iturbide’s status as one of the most significant and influential photographers of her generation. By presenting her work in such scope, the exhibition invites viewers not only to see but to inhabit the world as Iturbide perceives it, rich in both visual poetry and social insight.
Born in Mexico City in 1942, Iturbide initially pursued film at the Centro de Estudios Cinematográficos of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, aspiring to capture stories on the moving-image. Yet, under the tutelage of Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Mexico’s modernist master photographer, her path shifted unexpectedly but irrevocably toward photography. Between 1970 and 1971, she worked as Bravo’s assistant, travelling extensively across Mexico and absorbing both the technical intricacies of photography and the subtleties of observing communal life. These formative journeys informed her signature approach, one that blends documentary clarity with poetic sensibility, transforming everyday scenes into mythic tableaux. Over time, her work would develop into a profoundly empathetic lens on human experience, one that merges personal reflection with a deep curiosity about cultural and social worlds often overlooked.
The retrospective emphasises Iturbide’s fascination with the interplay between human life and environment, demonstrating how her camera seeks meaning beyond mere representation. Her early work with the Seri Indians of the Sonoran Desert, followed by an intensive decade-long exploration of the Juchitán community in Oaxaca, reflects her deep commitment to understanding the structures of society from within. In Juchitán, women occupy central roles in both daily life and ritual, and Iturbide’s images capture this presence with an intimacy and sensitivity that is at once powerful and respectful. These photographs resist exoticism or stereotype, instead presenting the women as complex and central agents in their communities. Viewed through a feminist lens, her work asserts the importance of women’s visibility and agency, situating her practice at the intersection of artistry and social consciousness.
Bob Jeffrey, Chief Executive Officer of ICP, succinctly encapsulates Iturbide’s influence: “Graciela Iturbide is without doubt one of the very best photographers, and an inspiration to younger image makers in Mexico and around the world.” This retrospective, by consolidating works from across decades and continents, provides a rare opportunity to witness the full range of her vision. Beyond documenting the lived realities of Mexican communities, Iturbide’s photographs engage in a dialogue with history, memory, and myth, creating a body of work that is simultaneously precise and poetic. In this sense, Serious Play is not only an exhibition of technical mastery but also a meditation on the enduring capacity of photography to reflect, question, and transform cultural understanding.
Iturbide’s lens is attuned to liminal spaces, where the ordinary intersects with the extraordinary and the ephemeral meets the eternal. From the deserts of Mexico to the streets of Havana, from Panamanian marketplaces to the festivals of Oaxaca, she captures moments where history, ritual and personal experience converge. The photographs oscillate between intimacy and grandeur, quiet ceremony and theatrical spectacle, always suffused with a compositional clarity and sensitivity to light that renders each frame both immediate and timeless. Her work exemplifies photography as contemplative – a means of seeing and feeling – where the observer is invited into the world she inhabits with curiosity and respect.
In situating Iturbide within a broader artistic dialogue, the exhibition also resonates with other women artists who have redefined the possibilities of image-making. British artists such as Tacita Dean, whose explorations of time, memory and landscape create quietly immersive worlds, and Rineke Dijkstra from the Netherlands, whose sensitive portraits of adolescents probe the thresholds of identity, reflect a shared sensibility with Iturbide’s work. Within Latin America, figures such as Mariana Yampolsky and Lola Álvarez Bravo paved the way for women photographers who prioritise empathy and cultural nuance, a legacy Iturbide both honours and expands. Beyond photography, contemporary names such as Tracey Emin have interrogated personal and collective memory through intimate and autobiographical work, emphasising the centrality of women’s narratives in the visual arts. In connecting these threads, Serious Play situates Iturbide firmly within a global conversation about gender, representation and cultural observation.
The exhibition also emphasises Iturbide’s engagement with landscape as more than mere backdrop, positioning it instead as a vital participant in storytelling. In her work, flora, architecture, and topography carry symbolic weight, shaping and reflecting the human experiences they contain. From botanical studies to documentation of religious festivals and her self-portraits, Iturbide treats natural and built environments as living, breathing entities, inseparable from the communities she portrays. Her photographs encourage viewers to reconsider the ways in which culture, history and environment interweave, illustrating how meaning is not simply found in human actions, but in the spaces they occupy.
Serious Play gains additional resonance in its timing and scope. Organised in partnership with Fundación MAPFRE, which holds the largest collection of Iturbide’s work outside Mexico, the exhibition positions her legacy in an international framework. Contemporary photographers such as Daniela Rossell and Alejandra Samudio acknowledge the influence of Iturbide’s approach, foregrounding women and indigenous communities while exploring the boundaries between documentary and poetic abstraction. In this context, Iturbide’s work transcends its origins, speaking to new generations of artists who aspire to blend social conscience with aesthetic rigor, reinforcing her status as a figure of global importance.
However, Iturbide’s photography is not merely about observation; it is about engagement, empathy, and imaginative play. The title of the exhibition, Serious Play, reflects this duality, capturing the balance she achieves between meticulous craft and intuitive exploration. Each frame negotiates the tension between intimacy and universality, the ephemeral and the enduring, the concrete and the mythical. The retrospective thus becomes not only a presentation of her work but also a reflection on the potential of photography itself: to illuminate, to question, and to transform the familiar into something extraordinary.
On a global stage, Serious Play is a landmark event, both a celebration of a singular artistic vision and an assertion of the ongoing relevance of photography as a tool for cultural dialogue, reflection, and critique. By gathering images from across Iturbide’s career, ICP allows audiences to experience the scope of her imagination and the depth of her empathy. Her work reminds us that the camera can do more than document: it can inhabit, interpret, and transform the world. It is a medium that, in the hands of a master, can illuminate not only what we see but how we understand it.
Serious Play affirms the enduring significance of women’s voices in shaping visual culture and positions photography as a medium capable of bridging continents, histories, and communities. The exhibition invites viewers to pause, reflect and enter a world that is at once tangible and dreamlike, immediate and mythic, intimate and universal. Photography, in the hands of Graciela Iturbide, does not merely capture life; it inhabits it, interrogates it, and ultimately transforms it into something timeless.
Graciela Iturbide: Serious Play is at International Center of Photography, New York, until 12 January.
Words: Anna Müller
Image Credits:
1. Graciela Iturbide, Mujer ángel, desierto de Sonora, México, 1979. Collection Fundación MAPFRE © Graciela Iturbide.
2. Graciela Iturbide, Autorretrato con los indios seris, desierto de Sonora, México, 1979. Collection Fundación MAPFRE © Graciela Iturbide.
3. Graciela Iturbide, Dolores Hidalgo, Guanajuato, México, 1978. Collection Fundación MAPFRE © Graciela Iturbide.
4. Graciela Iturbide, Cholos, White Fence Gang, East Los Angeles, Estados Unidos, 1986. Collection Fundación MAPFRE © Graciela Iturbide.
5. Graciela Iturbide, Ritual, fiesta de niño Fidencio Espinzao, Nuevo León, México, 2000. Collection Fundación MAPFRE © Graciela Iturbide.
6. Graciela Iturbide, Sahuaro (1), desierto de Sonora, México, 1979. Collection Fundación MAPFRE. © Graciela Iturbide.
7. Graciela Iturbide, Pushkar, India, 1999. Collection Fundación MAPFRE © Graciela Iturbide.
