06 May 2009 - 10 June 2009

SEX II
SEXO II

Sex II

Sex can be the most spontaneous and primitive form of communication or the most sophisticated and ceremonious but either way it is through sex that we express ourselves and we assume the role with which we identify. In the gallery El Fotómata in the second edition of the series SEX we have invited the artists to represent with freedom the role that each one decides to play. Photographers novice or established, professional or amateur show their most personal visions of relationships without prejudice nor obstacles with a language that can be direct and clear or symbolic and subtle. The result is an extensive range of posibilities that go from irony to audacity, from metaphor to provocation, from the poetic to the transgressive. In definition we always believe that it is a matter of exercising liberty. Come, look and enjoy! We present twelve other distinct ways of approaching the subject of sex.

And no one wants to be bored, there are also those capable of showing that the traditional boy-girl or dog-bitch formula is no longer relevant and, if it is, is seen from a different angle, audacious and unusual. ROSE CARVAJAL offers us a true mosaic of sex composed of daring and provocative images protagonizad by "Lorraine and Jazz" or "David and Aloha", characters full of natural and primary beauty, who seem to want to ask us if we dare to play.
Candidness and innocence have fled from the protagonist of the story of Zaida Cordero. In “Your 15 year old daughter and the alter boy” the girl has not only been taken over by her insinct and most primary need but has also involved a person who who represents the model of moral conduct. It is the test of hypocracy that is sometimes evident in society. It is the demonstration of the ingenuity that can transform into complicity and invite us to try it, to continue searching within the image with a longing to find something else.
Sex becomes a party, a dream fantasy carried to reality. Who has not dreamed of being the protagonist of the well worn story of the milkman and the housewife. The subtle irony and the brave audacity of this tandem of young photographers , Montiel y Castañeda, transforms one of the most recurrent topics of sex, with its kitsch aesthetic into a fun and striking erotic photonovel with a happy ending ; presex
Play is also the starting point of the work of ES3ARTE a pseudonymn that hides the personas of three artists that propose so many more suggestive card games called on to become causes of ejaculation: blank sex-white sex. Here the mythical drop of Edgerton makes metaphor and creates the ectasy and the culmination of erotic play.
The work of Laura G is the best example of the capacity that sex has to trap and enwrap the human being. The young author shows us that the experience has absorbed her in such a way it spans all the senses, exceeds any expectations, and unexpectedly has become the experience that dominates all her emotions in these particular moments. Her self portraits or the distinct versions of ´ínstructions” have helped her to know herself and identify with the sexual experiences of every woman.
And as the sexual experience has no limits nor accepts obstacles or false moraities, DAVID LUNA offers us the focus of masculine homosexuality in ´Pablo-Maxi IV´´. The ambiguity of the image suggests multiple interpretations that can be applied to the scene: the game, the chase, domination and surrender…unfocused and of spontaneity in the observation that moves away from the elaborate aesthetic that often surrender this world´all with an aesthetic of improvised appearance, of unlimited hunt and of spontaneity. Rather he remembers teachers of the fifties and sixties like Klein or Friedlander who with their informal phototographs managed to reclaim the expressive value of the formally incorrect.
In contrast Carlota Huelva chooses a more refined style of publicitary appearance to capture the emotion and the sentiment in the lesbian ancounter. “Liberte , egalite et sexualite” becomes as such, at the same time in demand and a poem, into a chant to liberty and to beauty and youth and sexual communication. Never has photography had so many opportunities to represent the various repetoire of posibilities in human relationships. And never has it been savoured in such a way .

But if sex is a game and sometimes absurd, nobody has understod it better than David Crespo in ´´Monologues´´. His surprising scenes , his unexpected commentaries, drive us to a fantasy and irreal world where everything is possible except logic. Each one of his photographs is capable of recreating a cinematic argument in which the space only suggests a well known reality. The rest is a hallucination so excessive that it provokes at the least a smile and is capable of avoiding the epic or lyric tone that all too often we link to sex. Welcome is the inexhaustable imagination. Without it even sex could be boring.
The most conceptual vision comes from Ana Hernando in “Sex by words”. She has chosen not to photograph the explicit actors of the living ritual, but prefers the succint enumeration of the values that serve as reclaim, in the leisure section of the adverts of any newspaper. Curious curriculum, morbid descriptions, striking measures, everything worth capturing the attention of the possible client. The most suggestive detail can decide the potential user, or simply constitute the effective ingredients to turno n the fanatsy of the undecided reader. One more way of approaching sex, which converts the subject to an object and is reflective of the double moral that sometimes defines us.
Sometimes the sexual image can also become metaphor. Samantha Garcia proposes a game of force and significance. The strength apparent in “Choked” is symbolic of these limit states, of confusion and anguish in those that on ocassion find us. If you don´t see the exit, if you don´t know the destination, if you find yourself lost and disorientated, maybe the best thing is to pause for a moment so that you can breathe.
Many artists today seem to use art as therapy, as a vehicle to express that which sometimes, we don´t know how to say with words. And without doubt the creation becomes for them a catharthis and for us a way to get to know ourselves better.
Something of that ocurrs with the projection of ELI GARMENDIA who uses a language and a style that demonstrates her admiration for Antoine D'Agata. “ Everyone´s called Eli ” is a successful and intimate chapter of her most personal day to day life. And it is shaped by the direct confrontation of her desires obsessions and contradictions. Only someone who has never had these would not understand them.
And once again we return to the mirror, one of the constants of the work of VINILO DE ULE and that which we can give the key of interpretation. The mirror puts at a distance and interposes the space to discover a reality ,
It is a window through which we can discover a perhaps hidden reality, our own.
And at the same time it allows us to show that reality to others and it becomes a fount of pleasure. We like to see ourselves we like to distance ourselves and become witnesses and protagonists. And we can also enjoy exhibiting ourselves , to show the world what our roles are, to show what we don´t dare to say. The mirror is a form of permission. And it is a magic instrument.

Congratulations to all! Come, look and enjoy!