Pablo López Luz: Jardines del Pedregal XXVI, Ciudad de México, 2018

Aperture is pleased to release this limited-edition print by Pablo López Luz in celebration of Aperture Issue #236: “Mexico City.”

“The first time I saw an image by Pablo López Luz, I thought that his work dealt with the problem of abstraction in photography. To register the mineral-infused waves of the volcanic-rock walls of Mexico City, in his series Piedra Volcánica (2018–19), seemed, at first impression, like a meditation on layers of texture and tone. It was not until I saw his pictures with fragments of the city’s detritus—the bumper of a parked car, bird shit, a piece of a lamppost, regular trash—that I understood the artist’s approach to be exactly the opposite: to make an index of Mexico City’s skin.

Skin is the most obvious and most mysterious of our organs: it’s a liminal fortress, our concrete connection to the world, the moving map that defines a self, the codex in which whatever beauty we may have interacts with marks of past pains. The Mexican author Margo Glantz has written that the fundamental document with which the generation of the conquistadors claimed the land of the Americas as property was their skin: the scars of past combats were the only inscriptions left of a confusing moment of which nobody else could give testimony.”—Álvaro Enrigue, from Aperture Issue #236: "Mexico City"

Each limited-edition print is hand-packed with great care and ships from New York within 3–5 days.