Lourdes Grobet

Lourdes Grobet has documented the spectacle of Mexican professional wrestling, known as lucha libre (free fighting), for more than 25 years. The only woman to have worked in such proximity to the sport, Grobet has photographed the masked luchadores in many contexts--and always in their signature disguises, which practitioners have worn since 1942, when a wrestler named El Santo stepped into a Mexico City ring wearing a silver mask, literally changing the face of the game forever. The mask, always a symbolically rich object in Mexican culture, serves both as a retreat (into anonymity) and as an attack, as a weapon with which to disconcert and terrorize the opponent. Its visual appeal, especially when set in scenarios outside the ring, was quickly apparent to Grobet, who describes El Santo as "one of the teachers that most influenced me early on." In Lucha Libre: The Family Portraits, Grobet shows the wrestlers with their mothers, wives and girlfriends, sitting for what would almost be a generic family portrait, but for the fantastic costumes of the luchadores themselves. By this simple recontextualizing gesture, we are brought to the threshold of their identities--and held there. The ungainly, monstrous and splendidly defiant stance they convey with this final preservation of anonymity is of course what gives Grobet's pictures their edge.
One of Mexico's leading contemporary photographers, Lourdes Grobet was a student of artists Mathias Goeritz, Gilberto Aceves Navarro and Katy Horna, among others. For the past 20 years, she has surveyed Mexican popular culture, from female wrestling, northern emigration and neo-Mayan architecture to Cuban immigration. Her influence on younger generations of Mexican artists, including Gabriel Orozco and Rubén Ortiz Torres, has been considerable.

Sexo y violencia--now available again in paperback! Take one part Mexi-Monster cinema, one part Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, throw in a little Zoro, the WWF and the knit-costume-wearing performance art collective Forcefield, and you come up with the raw, vivid, and psychologically unhinged world of Lucha Libre the sports-entertainment phenomenon that first swept Mexico and now the world. Photographer Lourdes Grobet's penentrating study of Mexican professional wrestling culture features more than 500 photographs of luchadores like Blue Demon, Santo, The Witch, Adorable Rub', El Solitario and Hurricane Ramirez, as well as pictures of their families, friends and fans--onstage, backstage and even at home. Lucha Libre also includes photographs of stickers, flyers, postcards, stills from Mexi-lucha-cinema, interviews with the wrestlers, essays and much, much more! In this comprehensive 20-year study, Grobet has put together the definitive look at Mexico's masked superstars. Viva la Lucha Libre! Now in its second printing.

One of Mexico's leading contemporary artists, Lourdes Grobet is a photographer who, for the past 20 years, has set her camera lens to look at Mexican popular culture, from female wrestling to northern emigration, from neo-Mayan architecture to Cuban immigration. Beyond photography, she has also tackled architecture, installation art and graphic design, collaborating with numerous institutions in Mexico and abroad to realize her projects. Throughout her long career, she has sometimes been associated with the Fluxus movement, and has had a great influence on the younger generations of Mexican artists, including Gabriel Orozco and Ruben Ortiz. Some of the institutions with which she has worked include the Museo de Arte Moderno of Mexico City, Museo Carrillo Gil, Museo Nacional de Arte, Museo de Bellas Artes, Museo Esteudio Diego Rivera, Fondo de Cultura Economica editorial, and Secretaria de Educacion Publica, among others. Grobet's work has been exhibited both individually and in group shows in the United States, England, France, Holland, Sweden, Venezuela, Brazil and Mexico.