CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 11/1/2021

Day of the Dead inspiration in Phyllis Galembo's 'Mexico Masks Rituals'

Celebrate Mexico's Día de los Muertos with photographer Phyllis Galembo's classic monograph, Mexico Masks Rituals. Galembo's images allow us to reflect on the "eternal present" of ritual celebrations, essayist Sergio Rodríguez Blanco writes. "Those who look back at us from these photographs are not the individuals, but the rituals captured in real time, as unabated, materialized symbols depicted in a mosaic of almost unrealistic forms, textures and colors, similar to abstract paintings. While these photographs cannot capture the eternal present of ritual time, the wearers of masks and costumes whose chromatic range seems to overflow from these pages are there posing for the camera, detained in the fixed time, also eternal—perhaps also sacred—of photography." Featured image is "Catrina, Axtla Jacaraondosas Group, All Saints' Day" (2016) from the Xantolo festival in San Luis Potosí. All Saints' Day is the last day of the three-day festival.