“I am mestiza, I love Mexico like I love Spain”

The Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide, Princess of Asturias Award for the Arts 2025, appeared this Tuesday fascinated by Spain and its rituals. “I love Spain and I would love to continue working here,” he stated.

Iturbide spoke in these terms at a press conference held in Oviedo, days before he collected the award this Friday in Asturias.

The Mexican artist recalled her work in El Rocío and told journalists about her experience, when she saw people dancing and experienced their rituals first-hand. She ended up sleeping on the floor and a gypsy, seeing her in those conditions, ended up giving her money so she could have a coffee, she recalled to journalists.

“I am mestizo and I have many grandparents who came from Spain and I love Mexico as much as I love Spain,” said Iturbide, who was “happy” to receive the Princess of Asturias award. He thanked the recognition “with all his heart.”

Asked about the impact that new technologies can have on the future of technology, Iturbide was calm. “I believe that the world of photography, like everything else, will continue to change, but I think analog photography will continue to existbecause many people, many photographers who have dedicated themselves to digital, have returned to analogue.

Regarding the reasons why she uses this technique, Iturbide has indicated that it is something “personal” because that is how she learned. “For me there are two decisive moments; when I take with surprise what I see and when with surprise I like or reject what I have taken,” he explained. He likes to continue working with paper and developing rolls. It is a “ritual.”

Furthermore, it does not use color rolls. “For me, my photography has to do with abstraction, where grey, white and black make a conjunction,” he explained.

Iturbide has rejected being fitted into the style called magical realism. “These are labels that Europeans give us,” he lamented. “You have described Vargas Llosa and García Márquez as writers of magical realism; read them now and you will see that they have nothing to do with each other,” he noted.

“They are labels that they give us, because we are Latin Americans and Europeans, a thousand apologies, but They tend to give us labels that do not belong to us; “I am Mexican, my country is wonderful and it is what I photograph,” she concluded.

Finally, Iturbide was asked if she has had more difficulties in her job because she is a woman. He has answered no. “At all, I have been the happiest photographing as a woman, I have been lucky that in the places where I have gone they have helped me, I have not had problems with people or colleagues, I have lived with the women and men of each place and I have never had any problems,” she said. “And I am a feminist,” she added.

Graciela Iturbide was born in Mexico City on May 16, 1942. In 1969 she began her studies at the University Center for Cinematographic Studies of the Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) (2009 Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities), with the intention of becoming a film director, but after learning about the work of photographer Manuel Álvarez Bravo and attending his classes, she was attracted to it. discipline. Between 1970 and 1971 he worked as Bravo’s assistant.

Owner of an innovative perspective, Iturbide’s lens has portrayed the social reality not only of Mexico but of many places where she has been invited to work.

In the seventies she traveled through Latin America, mainly through Cuba and Panama, and in 1978 she was commissioned by the Ethnographic Archive of the National Indigenous Institute of Mexico to document the country’s indigenous population with projects in which she photographed, for example, the Suri and Juchitán peoples. The latter gave rise to the book Women’s Juchitan (1989).

He later continued his work in Cuba, East Germany, India, Madagascar, Hungary, France and the United States, a period that gave rise to numerous works notable for their artistic depth and poetic sense.

Over time, his taste for portraiture and the description of human nature has changed in search of new objectives such as landscapes or found objects, which give his gaze a transcendental vision through the characteristic use of black and white. Iturbide has starred in individual exhibitions in some of the most important artistic centers and institutions in the world.