Asor
Manuel Rocha Iturbide
trade edition
With secrets drawn from her archive, Graciela Iturbide creates a curious world in which the human subjects we encounter in her widely-known portraits are absent. In Asor, the human subject is the reader alone, dream borne, on a journey in which all places remain nameless, time cannot be ascertained, and the course is lost to the imagination. Loosely inspired by Alice in Wonderland, Iturbide constructs her intimate homage to Lewis Carroll’s classic tale without words, using instead the narrative and formal elements of her photographs to take her readers on a fantastic journey that can unfold only in print.
Accompanying the visual work are six electroacoustic works by composer Manuel Rocha Iturbide. Composed over a fifteen year period from 1990 to 2005 from sources taped by Rocha Iturbide during his extensive travels, the compositions were selected by the composer in response to his mother’s photographs.
Artist book / an original work for print
Paper-wrapped hardcover; stitched book block; reinforced spine; headband; gold endpapers
21 x 21cm (8.25 x 8.25 in.)
204 pages; 104 tritone images
Audio CD titled Soar with six electroacoustic works by Manuel Rocha Iturbide (64 min.), attached to the inside back cover: SL-9 (1994); Rebicycling (2000); Móin-Mór (1995); Atl (1990); Purusha-Prakrti (2005); Cantos Rituales (2003)
Monoprint on the back endpaper, achieved through a chemical reaction between the gold paper and Audio CD pouch
Paper: Schleipen Werkdruck 1,75 170g, an acid-free, uncoated paper
Printing: book and cover wrapper were printed on Steidl’s Roland 700 and Roland 200 offset-lithographic presses using a tritone process, with an additional gold ink on the cover.
Concept and work: Graciela Iturbide
Electroacoustic works: Manuel Rocha Iturbide
Project development: Nina Holland and Jerry Sohn/Little Steidl
Book design: Graciela Iturbide, Nina Holland, and Simon Johnston
Scans and tritone separations: Steidl, Göttingen
Printing: Steidl, Göttingen
ISBN 978-3-86521-681-6
A Little Steidl book published by Steidl in 2009
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A limited edition of Asor with signed print and textile enclosure is available through Little Steidl.
About the Artists – Graciela Iturbide and Manuel Rocha Iturbide
Graciela Iturbide was born in Mexico City in 1942. At the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, she studied with Manuel Alvarez Bravo, who invited her to be his assistant in 1970. Since 1975 her photography has been extensively published and presented in more than sixty exhibitions throughout the world, including a major exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum in 2007–08.
Manuel Rocha Iturbide was born in Mexico City in 1963. He studied composition at the Escuela Nacional de Música and electronic music at Mills College and the University of Paris VIII. He has produced commissioned works for the Festival Internacional Cervantino and for the Arditti String Quartet and has presented works in numerous international music festivals and as sound installations in gallery settings.