Text By Katya Tylevich
Die Plek is pleased to present 50 Photographs*, created in close partnership with the artist, Graciela Iturbide, who personally selected fifty black-and-white photographs from her decades-long oeuvre for this exhibition. Showcasing portraits, scenes of ritual, abstract visions, and landscapes, this portfolio is both token and testimony of daily life in Iturbide’s native Mexico throughout changing times. The exhibition regards the photographs as a single artwork, to be experienced as a cohesive whole, and through the strength and distinctiveness of each individual image. The artist’s own hand in choosing these works validates them as the core of her opus.
The exhibition design by studio Vantieghem Talebi inspires the audience to experience 50 Photographs in exactly this way: as one piece composed of distinct visions. For this purpose, Vantieghem Talebi created a custom vitrine to house the photographs; the distinct object measures just over 18 metres long, with 26 dark drawers that viewers can open and close themselves. Depending on the actions of previous viewers, it is possible to come upon this vault completely shut—having to discover the photographs by pulling its drawers open, one by one. The tactile and intimate relationship to the photographs reminds one of the light-tight drawers of amateur darkrooms and home photography.
The bureau design moves viewers from the passivity of seeing a display, to the action of discovering an artwork and all it conceals, as if developing the photograph and seeing the image appear on paper for the first time. In a nod to the blend of ceremonies seen in the photographs, the vitrine also evokes the stations of the cross, becoming a kind of pilgrimage for the viewer across the world created by Iturbide. The object’s carmine red color refers to the vibrancy of Mexico’s streets and festivals. It is likewise a purposeful allusion to 13th-century Chinese cabinets, used for storing precious possessions.
This exhibition is tucked into an artist’s studio in Ghent, Belgium. Arriving at the private studio and finding the exhibition in one of its halls is yet another act of discovery. For the first time, Die Plek has developed and designed an imaginary home for its photographs—a physical embodiment of the philosophy that every work finds its own time and place.
- 50 Photographs is a collaboration with Rose Gallery, a photography gallery founded in 1992 by Rose Shoshana in Santa Monica, California.