Antonio Banderas

ANTONIO BANDERAS (Málaga, 1960).
"Engalanada", from the series "Secretos en negro", Málaga, 2010.
Digital photography on paper on Dibond.
Copy H.C.
Signed, titled, justified and with information of the print run on the back.
Series exhibited at the Cervantes Institute in Madrid in 2010.
Some scratches and white spots.
Measurements: 75 x 100 cm.

The famous actor Antonio Banderas has developed in parallel to his film career, especially in recent decades, a photographic work that has become known in international exhibitions. "Secrets in black" is the title of the series to which the photograph we are bidding for belongs, a series made up of 23 photographs brimming with theatricality and glamour, in which women appear as independent and empowered. She uses myths and references from literature, painting or opera and linked to Spanish culture such as Carmen, Don Juan Tenorio, The Barber of Seville or Goya's "La Maja Desnuda". From these references, he creates a sensual and elegant atmosphere in an intimate and studied environment. This series could be seen at the Cervantes Institute in Madrid in 2010.

In the photograph shown here, "Engalanada", Banderas proposes an aesthetic and symbolic reflection on betrayal. The image presents a young man with a wounded and bloodied back. Next to him, an empowered and adorned woman, with a haughty look and proud gesture, firmly holds the dagger that, presumably, has caused the wound. The black background reinforces this sense of suspension, silence and intrusion: hence the title of the series, "Secrets on Black".

Her work in Secrets on Black is characterized by a theatricalized, minimalist and conceptual mise-en-scène, in which the body -generally female- becomes a vehicle for the exploration of themes such as desire, the multiplicity of the self and inner silence. The choice of black as a background unifies the series and refers to a symbolically charged space: black as the hidden, the intimate, the unconfessable. The treatment of light is especially remarkable: in this photograph, the contrast between the illuminated characters and the dark background creates an almost tenebrist atmosphere, heir to the baroque pictorial tradition, but reinterpreted from contemporary digital aesthetics. The plasticity of the body and the accuracy of the reflections reveal a considerable technical mastery and a very careful aesthetic intention with which he enters the field of constructed photography.