The Mexican photographers Graciela Iturbide (b.1942) and Manuel Álvarez Bravo (1902–2002) are two of the most celebrated photographers in Latin America. The images each artist produced of their native Mexico have actively contributed to shaping Mexican visual identity while concurrently offering representations of marginalized populations that existed outside mainstream consciousness. Through the medium of photography, both Iturbide and Álvarez Bravo examined their own county and the myriad of Indigenous cultures within it.

Drawn from MCASD’ s permanent collection, México quiero conocerte: Photographs by Graciela Iturbide and Manuel Álvarez Bravo explores the intimate connection each photographer had to capturing aspects and ideas of Mexico. Photographing their own homeland, their approaches to picturing the country differed from the dominant Anglo and Eurocentric portrayals of Mexico produced by foreign image-makers. The exhibition·s title, borrowed from a well-known photograph by Iturbide, firmly grounds how both photographers grew to learn and explore their national landscape through the lens of their cameras. The works presented in this exhibition make evident the continual dialogue each artist had with the changing landscape of their country, while highlighting their contributions to ideas of myth in Mexico.

México quiero conocerte: Photographs by Graciela Iturbide and Manuel Álvarez Bravo is by Alana Hernandez at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego and made possible by gifts to the annual operating fund. Institutional support of MCASD is provided by the City of San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture and the County of San Diego Community Enhancement Fund.