Cathy's Art Diary

Enigmatic exhibition at the Photographers’ Gallery showcasing work by Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide. Most of Iturbide’s career has been spent documenting indigenous populations in Mexico, offering a glimpse into their rituals, traditions and struggles. This sounds quite dry on paper but the images were quirky with an eye for the strange but beautiful. My favourite picture is this one which took me a while to work out. It is a man carrying two mirrors which create images within images. I think it’s one of the best photographs I’ve ever seen. Her later work has moved away from photographing people to look at abstracted images of cacti and other plants in a series called Naturata. Closed 22 September 2024 Review Guardian    

Colourful exhibition at the Fashion and Textile Museum looking at the Mexican scarf, the rebozo, which has become an emblem of Mexican identity. It looked at how they are made and the influence they have had. The design of the show was lovely with scarves shown on nice manikins of an older Mexican lady, alongside photos and paintings and whole outfits. There was a mocked up shrine in the middle of the room and lots of cacti. The scarves themselves were beautiful but a little dull in colour and actually all quite similar. I don’t think I really got the subtle differences between them. I was more interested in how Mexican culture has used the image of the scarf and how modern designers had incorporated it. I loved portrait of weaver as a memorial to him with a loom set into the picture. I enjoyed the show and came out informed but it didn’t make me care.

Surprisingly good exhibition at the Royal Academy looking at art in Mexico in its revolutionary years. It was interesting to see both how the revolutionary leaders had used art to establish their rule but also how it had attracted foreign authors and artists to go and see what was happening. The paintings were very vibrant with a real sense of warm colour and action. Alongside them were some fascinating photographs with some particularly gory ones from the time of the revolution itself. I was interested to see that Edward Burra had gone there and done some enlightening work on his return home. My favourite piece through was Giotia’s “Old man seated on a trash heap” which had a wonderful texture and a great light blue sky. Reviews Times Guardian Telegraph Independent Evening Standard