PHOTOGRAPHY AT ABRA: MEMORIES OF 1970s VENEZUELA
On Sunday, June 1, 2025, ABRA gallery will inaugurate the exhibition Back on the Road by photographer Julio Iribarren in Warehouse 9 of the Los Galpones Art Center. The show brings together 26 photographs captured across Venezuelan territory between the mid-1970s and the early 1980s.
The exhibition takes its title from the 1957 book by American novelist and poet Jack Kerouac, On the Road, which had a profound influence on Iribarren in his youth. Inspired by Kerouac’s celebration of travel—its spirit of adventure, communion with nature, return to the land, and dignification of diverse ways of life—the photographer set out in the early 1970s to document Latin America, the United States, and finally his native Venezuela.
According to researcher Sagrario Berti’s wall text, “the meaning of Iribarren’s journeys was captured in images. […] These are unembellished photographs that dignify the ways of life of local people, carrying forward the prevailing discursive mode of the Venezuelan photographic scene as represented by Vladimir Sersa, Thea Segal, and Alexis Pérez Luna.”
“About fifty years ago, for a young city dweller like Iribarren to embark on such a journey was a remarkably bold gesture—an emotionally enriching plunge into adventure and discovery. It offered him the chance to explore spaces and customs far removed from his urban upbringing,” Berti writes.
Julio Iribarren (Caracas, 1949) is a self-taught artist who learned photography from books and through his friendships with Claudio Perna, Peter Hofler, and José Sigala. Since 1975 he has worked as an independent advertising photographer, producing projects in Costa Rica, Panama, the United States, Mexico, and Brazil.
Since the late 1970s, his work has appeared in group exhibitions such as Hecho en Venezuela (curated by José Sigala, Museum of Contemporary Art of Caracas, 1978), Colectiva de fotografía (curated by Vasco Szinetar, Daguerrotipo Gallery, 1980), La nueva naturaleza (Barquisimeto Art Museum, 1984), the 65th Arturo Michelena Salon (Valencia, 2010), No parecen vainas tuyas (Díaz Mancini Gallery, 2011), and Montaña. Homenaje a Manuel Cabré (Espai d’Art, Spain, 2015), among others. He has also held solo shows at Clave Gallery (1988), Utopías de la Memoria (Bucare Art, 2010), AQUA (Ateneo de Caracas, 2012), and Ciudad parafraseada (Galería Tres y 3, 2015).
Back on the Road will be on view through Sunday, August 10, 2025, in Warehouse 9 of ABRA gallery, at the Los Galpones Art Center (Avenida Ávila at 8th Transversal, Los Chorros, Caracas, Venezuela).
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