Antonio Banderas

ANTONIO BANDERAS (Málaga, 1960).
"The game", from the series "Secrets in black", Malaga, 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.
Slight damage.
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, "The Game", Banderas proposes an aesthetic and symbolic reflection on seduction and desire. The image presents a male character lying down, blindfolded and with his torso uncovered, suggesting a tension between sensuality and formal restraint. Above him a young woman breaks the silence with what appears to be a deafening scream. Candles scattered in the space obstruct what was hitherto an enveloping darkness, yet reinforce the sense of suspension, silence and secrecy: 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 exploring 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.