Product Description

¡Sexo y violencia! Take one part Mexi-Monster cinema, one part Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, throw in a little Zoro, the WWF, and the knit-costume-wearing performance art collective, Forcefield, and you come up with the raw, vivid, and psychologically unhinged world of Lucha Librethe sports-entertainment phenomenon that first swept Mexico and now the world. Photographer Lourdes Grobet's penentrating study of Mexican professional wrestling culture features over 500 photographs of luchadores like Blue Demon, Santo, The Witch, Adorable Rubí, El Solitario, and Hurricane Ramirez, as well as pictures of their families, friends, and fans--onstage, backstage, and even at home. Lucha Libre also includes photographs of stickers, flyers, postcards, stills from Mexi-lucha-cinema, interviews with the wrestlers, essays, and much, much more! In this comprehensive 20-year study, Grobet has put together THE definitive look at Mexico's masked superstars. ¡Viva la Lucha Libre! For 20 years, photographer Lourdes Grobet has penetrated the world of one of the most popular sports and deep-seated traditions in Mexico: Lucha Libre-wrestling. During that time, Grobet has been a frequent visitor, not only to the arenas, but to the private homes where male and female wrestlers meet and celebrate their victories, and live out their everyday lives. Grobet's passion for this sporting ritual has led her to gather not only thousands of photographs, but a vast collection of wrestling-meet posters and programs, newspaper clippings, postcards, flyers, magazine covers, movie posters, stickers, and diverse objects that form part of wrestling paraphernalia. These items are reproduced here in the stunning and rich colors and tones associated with Mexico's vibrant culture. An important manifestation of Mexican popular culture with roots in antiquity, associated with ritual, possessing ties to the theatre, and profoundly identified with current social phenomena. -Lourdes Grobet Edited by Alfonso Morales.

Essay by Carlos Monsiváis.

Interview with Lourdes Grobet by Carlos Rodriguez. Paperback, 8.25 x 11 in./296 pgs / Illustrated throughout.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #503349 in Books
• Published on: 2008-07-01
• Released on: 2008-07-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 296 pages

Customer Reviews

Lucha Libre Es Muy Bueno
This book is a visually stunning, warmly heartfelt, and emotionally powerful pictorial history of Lucha Libre compiled by the genre's most talented and prolific photographer. Ms. Grobet can only be thought of as the high priestess of the "theater of headbutt theology," as she so amusingly puts it. Lucha Libre shows a side of wrestling life unavailable anywhere else. There are luchadoras feeding their babies, enmascarados helping their wives with the dishes, and space giants hanging out with their Ewoks -- to name but a few images.

Lucha Libre is also a surprisingly large and thick book. Although it has a "softback" cover, it is in every way a coffee table book suitable for impressing a houseguest... assuming that he can be impressed by a full color pictorial history of masked wrestling. It has captions in both Spanish as well as glorious, unpretentious Spanglish that are a genuine pleasure to read. It's only flaws are that it isn't indexed (a pet peeve of mine) and that it's binding is a bit weak. Still, for the price this book is an absolute steal.

You would have to be a no-account Rudo not to buy this book.

Excellent Historical Pictoral History...
An amazing collection of photos, stories, and history from the archives of the most noted lucha photographer ever... Lordes Grobet thrusts the reader into the world of lucha libre and immerses them in the moments that made history...

THESE LUCHADORS WILL HAUNT YOUR DREAMS
I purchased this book for research and I was not dissapointed. First of all the book is large, and at over 300 pages there's plenty of eye candy. A lot of the pictures have a photo journalist feel to them bringing you deeper into the world that is Mexican Wrestling. This book is worth every penny. Do purchase.