Tecali, Puebla

Artist name

Artist year born

1942

Artwork make date

2011

Artwork material

silver gelatin
paper

Artwork dimensions

height: 18cm
width: 17.8cm

Artwork type (categories)

Photograph

Accession method

Purchased with the assistance of the Art Fund and the PINTA Museums Acquisitions Programme 2011-2012

Accession number

4-2012

Label text

Tecali (de Herrera) is the name of a town in Mexico in the state of Puebla where Iturbide has taken a number of photographs. The word is from Nahuatl, the official language of the Aztecs, which is still spoken today by two million Mexicans today. From the Nahuatl, via Spanish, we have the words chocolate (xocolatl) tomato (tomatl) and avocado (from ahuacatl). Tecali is derived from teo-calli, meaning ‘sacred/god (teo) house (calli)’ or temple. This photograph appears to show some kind of water tank, whose opaque water lends Iturbide’s reflected self-portrait an even softer quality.

(Display caption from the exhibition Mexican Migrations, 2013)