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September 2007 
Why is Flor Garduño my favorite photographer?
Posted on Aug 28th, 2007
by 
feliciamaria
feliciamaria
Why Flor Garduño?
Flor Garduño was born in 1957, just a few years before me; is also a woman; is also not white. But that’s not why I chose her. It’s simply this: Her photograph of a woman lying on a mat next to a couple of iguanas, neatly bound with twine, has haunted me for well over a decade. When her collection, Witnesses of Time, came out and launched her career into the stratosphere, her work came to my attention. I wanted to buy that particular photo as soon as I saw it, despite the $1000+ price tag at a gallery in San Francisco. My boyfriend at the time discouraged me.
It's called "Mujer Que Sueña" (Woman Dreaming). That's what got me first: it's not called Woman Sleeping, which is probably what I would have called it. How does the photographer know the woman is dreaming? And what could she be dreaming? Did she dream the iguanas into being?
Did she dream us into being?
Garduño's photos can do that to us: the subjects in the frame are so immediate, so primal, that they may very well be more real we, the mute observers. Never mind the absence of color! Garduño makes us forget color, or dismiss it as a cheap animator's trick. Are the iguanas (the mask/ the bird's skull/ the lush, tropical vegetation) “exotic”? Hardly! Every element of her compositions feels essential and natural, immune to the choices that assail us at every turn. Así es, so it is, so it must be.
Back to the dreaming woman: Where is she? The light sources are hard to place in many of Garduño's photographs, making it hard to place them in what we think of as our world. Where, we ask, is the sun? This, I think, is on purpose. The artist is offering us a glimpse of somewhere we cannot reach simply by getting on a plane.
I love the lack of voyeurism in Garduño's work. Her respect for her subjects is clear and uncomplicated; they are not “weird”, they are not there for our entertainment, but only for us to marvel at. If we shake our heads, it is only to wonder why we ourselves are not so astonishing.
……………………………………………………………
I think I'm going back to that gallery, with my checkbook.
Flor Garduño was born in 1957, just a few years before me; is also a woman; is also not white. But that’s not why I chose her. It’s simply this: Her photograph of a woman lying on a mat next to a couple of iguanas, neatly bound with twine, has haunted me for well over a decade. When her collection, Witnesses of Time, came out and launched her career into the stratosphere, her work came to my attention. I wanted to buy that particular photo as soon as I saw it, despite the $1000+ price tag at a gallery in San Francisco. My boyfriend at the time discouraged me.
Woman Dreaming
It's called "Mujer Que Sueña" (Woman Dreaming). That's what got me first: it's not called Woman Sleeping, which is probably what I would have called it. How does the photographer know the woman is dreaming? And what could she be dreaming? Did she dream the iguanas into being?
Did she dream us into being?
Garduño's photos can do that to us: the subjects in the frame are so immediate, so primal, that they may very well be more real we, the mute observers. Never mind the absence of color! Garduño makes us forget color, or dismiss it as a cheap animator's trick. Are the iguanas (the mask/ the bird's skull/ the lush, tropical vegetation) “exotic”? Hardly! Every element of her compositions feels essential and natural, immune to the choices that assail us at every turn. Así es, so it is, so it must be.
Back to the dreaming woman: Where is she? The light sources are hard to place in many of Garduño's photographs, making it hard to place them in what we think of as our world. Where, we ask, is the sun? This, I think, is on purpose. The artist is offering us a glimpse of somewhere we cannot reach simply by getting on a plane.
I love the lack of voyeurism in Garduño's work. Her respect for her subjects is clear and uncomplicated; they are not “weird”, they are not there for our entertainment, but only for us to marvel at. If we shake our heads, it is only to wonder why we ourselves are not so astonishing.
……………………………………………………………
I think I'm going back to that gallery, with my checkbook.
Access: PublicTagged with: photography, art
Hi Feliciamaria,
Just came by to say Hi. I saw your picture on the front page at www.Zaadz.com, I always look there before I log in and see who's randomly up there, and whose picture calls me to visit, and yours definitely did! :) I'm so glad that you are married to your best friend and multiply blessed. God bless you! I'm writing right now because I think your blog is wonderful! You are just starting it, I guess, and I would like to encourage you to keep writing. Thank you for sharing La Mujer que Suena with us. I wonder why the iguanas are bound? About going back to the gallery…I would, too! :) Sometimes I invite a traveling companion on the journey with me, and the companion, like this photo, has no legs. Oh well.