?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 4,500
GRACIELA ITURBIDE (1942- ) Magnolia I * Magnolia II. Silver prints, the images measuring 18 3/4x12 1/2 inches (46.4x31.8 cm.), the sheets 20x16 inches (50.8x40.6 cm.), each with Iturbide's signature and title, in pencil, on verso. 1986
WITH--Graciela Iturbide. Conquistadores, from the series Espiritu Santo. Photogravure, the image measuring 14 inches (35.6 cm.) square, the sheet 29 3/4x26 inches (75.6x66 cm.), with Iturbide's signature, title, and edition notation A.P. 7/10, in pencil, on recto, and with the Graphicstudio hand stamp with Iturbide's credit, on verso. 1996.
In 1979, Graciela Iturbide was asked by Mexican painter Francisco Toledo to visit and photograph his daily life in Juchitán, Oaxaca, Mexico. While there, Iturbide began a project in which she photographed local women, especially those of the indigenous community of the Zapotec people. These women are politically, economically, and sexually independent, and have been idealized as a source of national strength for over a century.
In Zapotec culture, there is markedly little hostility towards homosexuality and gender non-conformity. The acceptance of a community of people of a third gender, called muxe (pronounced MOO-shay) is widespread in this region. Muxe are individuals who do not identify as men or women, but rather have some feminine and some masculine characteristics. One such person is Magnolia, the subject of these photographs by Iturbide. In a Spanish-language interview with Adela Micha, Iturbide spoke about meeting Magnolia by chance at a bar in Juchitán. 'There, Magnolia asked me if I would like to photograph her and I said of course. So then she went to her room and made herself up the way she wanted to. I only photograph people with their permission.'
