fototazo: LatAm f100: Roberto Tondopó and Martin Wannam

fototazo has asked a group of 50 curators, gallery owners, blog writers, photographers, academics and others actively engaged with Latin American photography to pick two photographers whose work deserves recognition.

This project aims to highlight great work being made in the region today and also to provide a starting point in both English and Spanish for exploring contemporary Latin American photography. LatAm f100 is a collaboration between fototazo and the photographer and educator Jaime Permuth.

Today we continue the series with selections by Efrem Zelony-Mindell. His biography follows his selections.

fototazo ha invitado a un grupo de 50 curadores, galeristas, escritores, fotógrafos, y académicos - entre otros individuos seriamente comprometidos con la fotografía latinoamericana - a escoger cada quién dos fotógrafos cuya obra sea merecedora de mayor reconocimiento.

Este proyecto es una manera de celebrar el gran trabajo que se lleva a cabo en la región. Asimismo, busca proporcionar un punto de partida bilingüe en inglés y en español a las audiencias que deseen explorar la fotografía contemporánea en Latinoamérica. LatAm f100 es una colaboración entre fototazo y el fotógrafo y educador Jaime Permuth.

Hoy continuamos la serie con selecciones aportadas por Efrem Zelony-Mindell. Encontrará su biografía al final del texto.

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In Martin Wannam the plausible strikes with the uncanny. The queer of a Central American upbringing pushes against discomforts of religion, versus desires of human decency in this work. Wannam is a photographer, yes, but beyond his creative vernacular he is an experimenter, an alchemist, a decisive maker seemingly obsessed with accepting the unaccepted, the unusual, and maybe even the grotesque. He exemplifies, to me, the qualities necessary to be unsure of what the future may hold, but eager to know that in the hands of that uncertainty he will bring on the possibility of new worlds informed by foreign lands.

En Martin Wannam lo plausible choca con lo extraño. Lo queer de una educación centroamericana empuja contra las molestias de la religión, en contra de los deseos de decencia humana en este trabajo. Wannam es un fotógrafo, sí, pero más allá de su vernácula creatividad, es un experimentador, un alquimista, un creador decisivo que parece obsesionado con aceptar lo inaceptable, lo inusual y quizás incluso lo grotesco. Él ejemplifica, para mí, las cualidades necesarias para estar inseguro de lo que puede deparar el futuro, pero ansioso por saber que, en manos de esa incertidumbre, él traerá la posibilidad de nuevos mundos informados por tierras extranjeras.

From the series "THEY" © Martin Wannam

From the artist: In this work, I began to address Catholic imagery and hate crimes in the area of Central America and the Caribbean, where religion is one of the main reasons people discriminate against, harm and murder members of the queer community. One of the most important demographic dynamics to understand this phenomenon is the growth and influence of evangelical churches and other religious groups on the politics and institutions of the countries of the region. Guatemala has an evangelical population of 41%, the highest in Central America, followed in its order by Honduras (39%), Nicaragua (32%), El Salvador (28%), Costa Rica (25%) and Panama (24%)

One of my interests is in the deconstruction of Catholic imagery and concepts, and in their reconstruction through queerness. Choosing the term queerness is intentional because the word is broad, and because it gives presence and power to something that Catholicism specifically refers to as not normal. Rather than normalize queerness, I want to highlight in a positive light what makes the community unique, and in doing so to overpower a heternormative system. In my second interest, I conduct research into specific instances of hate crimes, and then make pieces in which I reconstruct gestures that took place during each crime—first, to make memories political and second, to bring attention to lost voices.

In both approaches, deconstruction of religion and hate crimes, I use signs, symbols, gestures, objects and imagery that are specifically Catholic to create potential discomfort through the ostensibly disrespectful way I am using them. All of this was created with the intention to protest the way the LGTBQI+ community is vulnerable to "be victims in different ways of violence, that ranges from subtle ways of invisibility and lack of attention up to sexual aggression and death."

As I worked with these symbolic objects, I began to increasingly question their power. I started to create my own narrative by "queering" the objects, altering their original meanings, making it a campy satire about what objects would look like in a different reality. I critique the lack of acceptance from conservative society and heightened violence of repress culture by viewing anything to do with the community as "unnatural" (and acknowledging everything "natural" to be heterosexual). I started painting crosses or sculptures pink and adding shiny and artificial materials such as glitter, condoms or fabric to interfere with a social construct of color and interpretation.

I look at each case individually, and then I impose gestures to Catholic objects on photography paper by breaking, burning, destroying or painting them, either before capturing or after printing the image. In each, I am referring to details from a specific act of violence that was made against queer people, leading to their death. I do not intend to respect these “precious objects,” but rather to reverse the roles, to bring a sense of political disturbance. In most of these hate crime cases, the perpetrator enjoys immunity and the victim's voice is lost.

I capture images, most of the time in industrial places, to reflect the way victims bodies are disposed, which is in contrast to how manufactured religious sculptures -"precious objects"- are treated and idolized. I utilize a white, clean, generic space to emphasize that all this crime happened in a system that wants everything to be "heterosexual." Each image that I create is presented with the name, date and place where the crime was committed, to create a tension between the image and information for the viewer. I want this work to be direct, to speak to the corrupted system of fear and impunity that Latin Americans suffer.

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Roberto Tondopó is a dynamic storyteller. These stories start in communities with people who adore and desire the power of camaraderie. They are bloomed by their limbs and their loves of fabrics, colors, one another and the earth. Terra transforms vision and before Tondopó’s camera an exciting and significant vein of Mexico comes to light. There is heartache, and there is affection. Through his unique treatment of photography, and what the medium is capable of, something far more personal and connective is revealed. Tondopó does not just take photos; he allows a total picture to come through by the way he sets and makes things.

Roberto Tondopó es un dinámico contador de historias. Estas historias comienzan en comunidades con gente que adora y desea el poder de la camaradería. Están florecidos por sus extremidades y sus amores por las telas, los colores, entre sí, y la tierra. Terra transforma la visión y, ante la cámara de Tondopó, surge una imagen emocionante y significativa de México. Hay angustia, y hay afecto. A través de su tratamiento único de la fotografía, y de lo que es capaz el medio, se revela algo mucho más personal y conectivo. Tondopó no solo toma fotos; él permite que aparezca una imagen total por la forma en que establece y hace las cosas.

From the series "Holy Glorious San Sebastian" © Roberto Tondopó

From the artist: Holy Glorious San Sebastian is a project that shows representations of the Chuntás – men that dress as women and dance during the celebration of the Fiesta Grande in Chiapas, Mexico - as possible living San Sebastians - the saint which is offered devotion through the dance of the Chuntás during the festive celebration. Embodied through a living body, the religious figure is granted a certain "agency," the imagery of the saint is transformed and assumed from another perspective, where the "I – gay" of today is able to reveal itself, to uncover, to transfigure, to become earthy and travel the mundane but also incarnate the affections from a reconfigured emotional and spiritual place, combining the sacred elements with the pagan flesh.

The photographs of the LGBTQ Chuntás subjects shows them in isolated portraits and in their context, generating photographs far from the festive atmosphere in a process from a distance that allows and reflects a private ambit with the photographed subject.

The reasons that motivated this way of "initiatory act" were personal, to return to my father's culture, and now I find myself immersed in this process, as a spiritual rebirth which is a syncretism by the mythical elements that conform both the memory of the locality and my personal history.

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Efrem Zelony-Mindell is an independent curator, writer and artist. His curatorial endeavors include shows in NYC: n e w f l e s h, Are You Loathsome, Familiar Strange, and This Is Not Here. He writes about art for DEAR DAVE, VICE, Unseen, SPOT, Musée Magazine, Rocket Science Magazine, artist monographs and numerous other publications. He received his BFA from the School of Visual Arts.

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This series also includes responses from Molly Roberts, Mariela Sancari, Alonso Castillo, Paccarik Orue, Katrin Eismann, Dina Mitrani, Don Gregorio Anton, Cristina De Middel, Arturo Soto, Cecilia Fajardo-Hill, Guillermo Srodek-Hart, Yorgos Efthymiadis, Livia Animas, Juanita Bermúdez, Susana Raab, the pairing of Victoria Holguín and Daniella Benedetti, Emiliano Valdés, Muriel Hasbun, George Slade, Marta Dahó, Elizabeth Avedon, Jorge Piccini, Rodrigo Orrantia, Sujong Song, Nelson Herrera Ysla, Oliva María Rubio, Jonathan Blaustein, Patricia Martin, José Luis Cuevas, Zully Sotelo, Alfredo De Stefano Farías, Gonzalo Golpe, Julián Barón, James Rodríguez, Misha Vallejo, Musuk Nolte, Cintia Durán, Alasdair Foster, Eder Chiodetto, Erik van der Weijde and Stella Johnson.

La serie también incluye contribuciones de Molly Roberts, Mariela Sancari, Alonso Castillo, Paccarik Orue, Katrin Eismann, Dina Mitrani, Don Gregorio Anton, Cristina De Middel, Arturo Soto, Cecilia Fajardo-Hill, Guillermo Srodek-Hart, Yorgos Efthymiadis, Livia Animas, Juanita Bermúdez, Susana Raab, el dúo de Victoria Holguín and Daniella Benedetti, Emiliano Valdés, Muriel Hasbun, George Slade, Marta Dahó, Elizabeth Avedon, Jorge Piccini, Rodrigo Orrantia, Sujong Song y Nelson Herrera Ysla, Oliva María Rubio, Jonathan Blaustein, Patricia Martin, José Luis Cuevas, Zully Sotelo, Alfredo De Stefano Farías, Gonzalo Golpe, Julián Barón, James Rodríguez, Musuk Nolte, Cintia Durán, Alasdair Foster, Eder Chiodetto, Erik van der Weijde y Stella Johnson.

3.13.2019

LatAm f100: Roberto Tondopó and Martin Wannam