Anthropoetry
Phaidon publish a series of little books, called '55'. Each contains 128 pages dedicated to a 'master' photographer.
Though they don't cover a huge range of photographers, I like them because they're compact and the images are accompanied by explanatory captions and some background in the introduction. I keep them as a reference. Currently I'm disecting one dedicated to Graciela Iturbide.
All of the images in this volume show her interest in animals and their relationship to people. Some animals appear incidentally, and others quite intentionally, but collected together as a whole, in one volume, we can see Iturbide's special interest, namely: how "...different people around the world reflect on the finite nature of their existence as revealed in their dealings with animals, objects, ritual and daily existence..."
While we may classify her images loosely as documentary, her limited coverage of cultures and subjects show no particular scientific rigour to that aim. And so, instead, a very nice term: anthropoetry, quite aptly expresses her spirit, I think.
The book also suggests that Iturbide was aware of the exotic (the dangers of its appearance in photography of 'traditional cultures') and either avoided it or parodied it. Cuauhtemoc Medina, a critic and historian who wrote the intro, suggests that exoticism arises, not from the photographer but from Western eyes; the main consumers of her images. I nevertheless sense her images tainted slightly - poetry seems to use the exotic, sometimes, as a visual stimulator. I see her eyes as 'athropoetic Western', influenced by the same passion and tradition of some of the major photographers of her period. But I question whether that hint of exoticism is harmful at all. Is it one of those words that everyone knows is bad, having had it passed to them that way, but without knowing actually why?
Anyway, Iturbide is found not guilty on all counts of the exotic in the intro. I suspect, I'm not really in the know, someone may have to knock me into line.
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Submitted by Philip Cartland on 29 November 2007 - 10:18am.