Antonio Banderas

ANTONIO BANDERAS (Málaga, 1960).
Untitled, from the series "Secretos en negro", Málaga, 2010.
Digital photography on paper on Dibond.
Series exhibited at the Cervantes Institute in Madrid in 2010.
Without signature.
Measurements: 100 x 75 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 image shown here, the female figure emerges as the only presence, precisely cut out by a soft and enveloping light that gives her body a sculptural texture. The woman, captured full-length, holds a bullfighting cape, twirling it around her legs. Her back is turned to us and she wears a bullfighting hat, which introduces an allusion to Spanish cultural tradition, but also to the codes of ritualized masculinity. The hat and cape become ambiguous emblems of power, identity and role-play. The bullfighting cape is a symbolic veil that protects and exposes at the same time, introducing dual symbolisms referring to desire and ritual violence.

Her work in Secrets on Black is characterized by a theatricalized, minimalist and conceptual staging, 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.