Cayó del cielo
Graciela Iturbide
Fallen from Heaven
The feast of Saint Michael is celebrated on September 26 in Chalma, Mexico State. During the day, festivities, fairs, and processions are held as part of this tradition devoted to the town's patron saint. The holiday is also an excuse for some people to dress up—like the woman in the photograph who, in the middle of the celebration, walks neatly over the bare earth in her plastic sandals and white wings. Iturbide has chosen not to show us her face, a recurring decision in her work; instead, she lets the truncated wings and the gesture of her hand, gathering up her skirts, express the subject’s identity and attitude as she walks.
The image reveals the photographer’s obsession with masks and disguises as a means of creating fiction and reality in everyday life.
In Graciela Iturbide’s work, we can see a striking degree of personal involvement, the construction of intimate bonds with the communities documented therein. Her camera approaches people in such a way that the final image defies a merely anthropological interpretation.
GRACIELA ITURBIDE (1942)
Cayó del cielo, 1990
Fallen from Heaven
Gelatin silver print
Acquisition, 2005
