Posts Tagged ‘Torero’

When you stop to think about women in countries like Argentina or in the countryside of Spain, what do you picture? If you’re anything like me, it’s a romantic vision of a flamenco dancer in a black dress with dramatic makeup, a lace fan, and the attitude of a seasoned temptress.  Ruven Afanador knows this woman – in fact, he knows many of them.

Photographed in a desert looking uncomfortably hot in long black dresses and striking wigs, Afanador’s women are the bold image of Latin women that remains burned in our brains from John Singer Sargent paintings and films by Luis Bunuel and Federico Fellini.  They are the women who look like they could teach you about the ways of the world in the most basic sense – they look like they’re from the earth.  That’s particularly why Afanador’s photographs, in his “Mil Besos” exhibition are so memorable, enticing, and true.  He photographs women of all shapes and sizes in various forms of undress at their most intense – one image shows two women nearly kissing, one shows three women who look like they’re on the verge of spontaneously imploding (in good and bad ways), and one shows two women in the midst of a certain kind of dance and wearing long skirts that almost seem connected.

In his “Torero” exhibit, showing in the smaller of Fahey/Klein’s two rooms, the images are more portrait-like and show the young men who become bull-fighters in all their embroidered, detailed, costume-like majesty.  There are the simple parts, like a dusty pair of shoes with a bow, there are images that celebrate the male body, and there are images that show the emotion behind such a dangerous and historically rich sport.

All in all, Afanador’s images, from both exhibits, succeed in so many ways.  They not only enhance the melodramatic and quixotic vision of Latin men and women, but they also seem to show the familiar and human side of these gorgeous specimens.

Ruven Afanador’s “Mil Besos” and “Torero” will be on view at Fahey/Klein Gallery through March 27.  Please click here for more information.