Lourdes Grobet

Lourdes Grobet Argüelles (25 July 1940 – 15 July 2022) was a Mexican contemporary photographer, known for her photographs of Mexican lucha libre wrestlers.

Grobet spent some time as a painter before focussing on photography.

Early life Grobet was born in México City, where she grew up with her parents. Grobet took a formal painting class at the Academy of San Carlos. Her parents did not like the views of the school and sent her to work under a Catholic professor named José Suárez Olvera, who painted murals for the Church of San Francisco.

Education Grobet studied plastic arts at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico and graphic design and photography in Britain at the Cardiff College of Art She was very moved by her professor Mathias Goeritz, from whom she learned that mass media showed a new way of expression. When Goeritz gave up teaching, he asked Grobet to be his assistant while he worked on stained glassed windows for the México City Cathedral. She studied in England in 1977 and did a few landscape paintings. She ended up failing, however, because the photography faculty did not like that she altered the landscape and strayed away from keeping it purely documentary.

Career Kati Horna introduced Grobet to the world of photography, though the main influences in her early career were Mathias Goeritz, Gilberto Aceves Navarro, El Santo and others.

While she was in Paris, Grobet visited many art galleries and discovered kinetic art; formed by Pedro Meyer in 1977. With her participation in this group, she was able to revitalize photography in Mexico, which led to a movement called the Grupos. Grobet was focused on establishing a community-based perspective.

Grobet spent some time with indigenous people during a time of great struggle for them. She took the time to learn more about them and photograph them in a theatrical way. She wanted to relate to indigenous people using her artistic initiative, so they made costumes and scenery of their own and she then took their photos. Later on, Grobet took interest in the Mayan culture. Wanting to learn more about the Mayans she went to the suburbs; while this was not a common thing to do, she wanted to steer clear of any tourists. She wanted to get accurate information about the people she documented and explore an area less traveled. She discovered temples that were made by an unknown civilization and she decided they were to be called the Olmayazetec.

After her education and her travels, Grobet came back to México City. She once again started to explore her childhood interest of luchadores.

Grobet spent thirty years devoted to taking pictures of the luchadores and studying their way of life. She spent time photographing lucha libre wrestlers inside and outside of the ring, both in their masks, but also in their own homes. Grobet wanted to show that they lived normal lives, just like everyone else. She got very close with well known Lucha Libre wrestlers such as: El Santo, Blue Demon, Mil Mascaras, Sagrada, Octagon, Misioneros de la Muerte, Los Perros del Mal, and Los Brazos. Influenced greatly by Mathias Goeritz, the Polish sculptor from Gdańsk, and by Gilberto Aceves Navarro, a Mexican master of art murals, who were her teachers, Grobet worked on pictures of El Santo, one of the most important Mexican wrestlers, and a hero of lucha libre who starred in more than 50 films. Since 1975, she has published more than photographs of the sport, including those on the sport in the United States since the 1930s, and as an important part of Mexican popular culture, adopting a sociological attitude. The sport involves many costumes and masks, leading it to a sport-carnival air which is much appreciated by Mexicans.

She also ventured into cinema. In her 2013 movie Bering. Balance and Resistance, Grobet questions the political separation between the Big Diomede Island (Russia) and the Little Diomede Island (USA) in the Bering Strait, a border between the United States and Russia. Showing the consequences of the separation between both Islands. After the American-Soviet conflict of the 21st century, the Beringia region was divided in two, which caused the separation of complete Nanook families and also, paradoxically, separated the place where the first human beings that populated the American continent crossed.

Grobet has had over one hundred exhibitions of her photographs, both group and solo exhibitions. She had her work exhibited at the London Mexfest festival in 2012. She won an award at the Second Biennal in Fine Art Photography. In 1975, for the exhibition Hora y media, she transformed a gallery into a photographic laboratory. She developed the photographs, but without fixing them, and displayed them on three walls. While the public looked at the photographs, the lights from the gallery made it look like they disappeared.

In 1977, Grobet presented Travelling, an exhibition of photography on an escalator. Among her other works were Paisajes pintados, Teatro campesino, Strip Tease.

Personal life Grobet married Xavier Pérez Barba in 1962 and they had four children together. They divorced in 1974.

Work and process As Grobet was taking her photographs, she desired to understand reality better. According to Grobet, and as noted in her 2005 book Lourdes Grobet, "she has used this photographic experience as an inductive process in order to understand or 'live' reality (or realities) rather than illustrate certain preconceived ideas. She is not scared to employ different (sometimes contradictory) languages available to her to speak of her particular experience and standpoint, thus sacrificing formal purism. In her own way, Grobet manages to use photography to relate to herself, to relate to us and to take action in the problematic reality that is Mexico." 2002: MacDowell Residency, United States 2005-2006: FONCA grant, Mexico 2007: MacDowell Residency, United States 2010-2011: FONCA grant, Mexico

Solo exhibitions Year Location Venue Title Notes Ref 1970 México City, Mexico Galería Misrachi Serendípiti 1988 Café la Gloria Los Manteles de Septiembre 2006 México City, Mexico Three subway stations Lucha Libre 2007 Madrid, Spain Foto España 2008 Paris, France Musée du Quai Branly Upside Down Les Artiques México City, Mexico Mexican Social Security Institute La Mano Negra 2009 Museo Archivo de la Fotografía Equilibrium & Resistance 2010 Galería Metropolitana Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia National Museum of Art Espectacular de Lucha Libre 2012 Nîmes, France NegPos Centre d’Art et de Photographie El nuevo hombre de Bering

Theatre, film, and video Year !! Location !! Venue !! Type !! Title !! Notes !! Ref

Fundación Cultural Televisa, Mexico San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, USA Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach, USA

Publications 1982: Se Escoge el Tiempo. Los Talleres, México City. 1984: Luciérnagas (a published collection of loose photographs). E.N.A.P. México City. 1987: Bodas de Sangre. Tabasco County Government. 1996: Santo y Seña de los Recintos Históricos de la Universidad de México. . 2005: Lourdes Grobet. Turner Publicaciones, Spain. . 2005: Lucha Libre: Masked Superstars of Mexican Wrestling. . 2007: Retratos de Familia. Reverté Editores, Mexico/Spain. . 2008: Espectacular de Lucha Libre. Trilce Editions, México City. . 2008: Lucha Libre Mexicana (with Gabriel Rodríguez)