Ruven Afanador “Angel Gitano:The Men of Flamenco”
Throckmorton Fine Art
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Throckmorton Fine Art announces our fourth exhibition of Ruven Afanador photographs, titled Ángel Gitano – The Men of Flamenco. Spencer Throckmorton says, “We are thrilled to be the first to show the extraordinary images in the stunning new book, Ángel Gitano–The Men of Flamenco. Ruven has a unique point of view and these powerful, provocative photographs underscore his ability to delight and seduce viewers with their passionate depiction of the musical world of flamenco. They are a welcome next step is his study of flamenco after the successful publication of Mil Besos, which lent a new perspective to the amazing sensuality of female flamenco dancers.”
The images of Ángel Gitano will be exhibited in the United States, Latin America and Europe, beginning with Throckmorton Fine Art in New York. A companion to Mil Besos, Afanador’s collection of photographs of the women of flamenco published in 2009, this surreal exploration of the world of its men, once again pays homage to that singular manifestation of the Spanish soul.
The images demonstrate Afanador’s laser sharp focus on its most eccentric of articulations—el ángel—that powerful spirit that inflames flamenco with its intense emotion. “Ruven evokes Salvador Dali’s fantastical expressions with wit and daring, often tinted with the magical realism of his fellow Colombian, Gabriel García Marquez. Afanador’s ángel is described as an elegant erotic charge akin to the poems of Federico García Lorca, expressed here with abandon and the joyful freedom of our times.”
Ángel Gitan –The Men of Flamenco was shot by Afanador in very high contrast under the white bright light of Andalusia, providing a compelling and often irreverent portrayal of the indomitable vitality of generations of larger-than-life gypsies, heirs to the soulful song and dance that evolved for centuries in the cultural lushness of the Iberian tradition. Afanadoradroitly juxtaposes primal archetypes with breathtaking young dancers from contemporary companies who, sinuous and lissome, enrich the imagery with an exquisitely sensual bravura.
“For me Ruven Afanador opened a door marked ‘Do Not Enter.’ Once there,” says Diane Keaton, “he gave me the liberty to immerse myself in a world where strangely beautiful men wearing two-foot-high black wigs stand on stilts while they sing and dance in polka-dot ties, with striped pants.”
Working together with his team of collaborators under the unforgiving white light of Andalusia, Afanador photographed the men out of their usual context, in the harsh wheat fields outside Sevilla and the austere landscape near Jerez de la Frontera, and donning the theatrical make-up of Italian Neo-realism, which has long been his signature. To highlight their eccentricity, he mixed pieces from the men’s own wardrobes—flat top berets and ruffle trimmed shirts—with dramatic flourishes of his own: fringe, flounces and stylized high waist, wide bottom pants; with lace-up corsets, endless ropes of pearls, and long skirts. To decode the scorching mystery of el ángel, he portrays them dressed mostly in black, just draped in feral hair, or gloriously naked.
Media
Schedule
from November 06, 2014 to February 28, 2015