Graciela Iturbide, Des oiseaux, 2019

A figure in Latin American photography, Graciela Iturbide creates images that oscillate between documentary approach and lyricism. Off-center frames, graphic effects and powerful shadows create a poetic universe where the feeling of strangeness mingles with that of a harsh reality. The powerful balance of his compositions reveals skies saturated with birds, funny and unexpected situations where chickens wait quietly on market stalls, where pigeons quarrel with monkeys, elsewhere are moving clouds that resemble to real living organisms with flexible and fluid movements. For Iturbide, living birds represent freedom. But death is never far away and neither is a certain surreal spirit. From India to Mexico, from waterfronts to urban terraces, seagulls, eagles, pigeons, herons, crows invade human space or slip into it unexpectedly and solitary. The birds of Graciela Iturbide arouse both attraction and repulsion: their fragility but sometimes also their power.

This book is part of the Birds collection which celebrates, through the eyes of various artists, their immense presence in a world where they are today weakened. Ornithologist Guilhem Lesaffre offers a unique essay to accompany each set of photographs. Other titles in the collection include: Michael Kenna, Yoshinori Mizutani, Bernard Plossu, Pentti Sammallahti, and Terri Weifenbach.