If you had a secret identity, what would it be? Do you like photography? Does BDSM mean anything to you?
If you are wondering how these questions are connected, then stop by the Noel-Baza Fine Art Gallery at 2165 India Street and check out Equal = Secret Identity, an exhibition of atypical portraits by local photographer Josue Castro.
What began as a simple project photographing various friends wearing S/M type masks has turned into something big.
“It all began,” Castro tells me, “when I first showed these images in Mexico. The museums in Tijuana and Guadalajara had big walls so I was able to hang huge photographs, four feet by eight feet (there is one example of these at Noel-Baza). Visitors loved the pictures of ordinary people wearing masks and other disguises involving hoods and hand-cuffs. People identified with them so much they started taking their own photos standing in front of mine.”
Once the exhibitions closed, Castro found that many of his new fans signed his guest book offering to pose for him in future.
And so a long-term project was born. A line of moms, chefs, realtors and lawyers have since paraded through Castro’s studio, each volunteer model bringing with them props describing their own sexy, dangerous, religious but ultimately anonymous secret identity for Castro to photograph and turn into art.
Why this amazing response? “Mexico is a culture that already responds to the costumes and mystery of Nacho Libre and superheroes, so my photographs made sense to people and they wanted to participate. The BDSM references are less about a taboo sexual subculture in Mexico than here in the U.S. so there wasn’t that connotation.”
Castro describes each photo shoot as a collaboration, equal parts photography, therapy and anthropology; the title of the show hints at his premise that once we are all masked by our fetish or fantasy or secret identity we are all equal; the way it should be all the time.
More than 100 photographs later, Deborah Klochko, Director of San Diego’s Museum of Photographic Arts shaped a selection of these sensuously lit digital images into a miniature survey – which you can become part of. Castro’s project is ongoing, so if you have a superhero or a secret identity lurking inside you, don’t forget to sign his guest book on your way out.
Got an event, performance, happening or anything art-related to share? Then send the details to andrew@andrewprinter.com at least two weeks in advance.
