It stands as a definitive visual statement within the celebrated series by contemporary artist Celso José Castro Daza. Relying on precise central framing, manual deconstruction of the print, and symbolic layering to trace an emotional narrative, the work masterfully documents an exploration of identity constructed from the unexpected communion of a nude model named Rolando, an ancient indigenous stone idol, and a fragmented sculpture of Christ. The composition anchors a powerful, fragmented perspective that follows a full-bodied male form, using a rich yellow field to frame the bodies and transform the surface of the archival paper into a pure topographical landscape of cultural syncretism, control, and chance.
The root of these unique pPhotomontage works by the artist Celso Castro occurred when the artist returned from Italy to live back in Colombia in 1987. Castro wanted to produce from the photographs he took with his camera larger versions of those pieces, but having only registered his models with a single photograph it was impossible to achieve, given this need he adopts the language of fractionation completing the message he wants to transmit through his work. Castro perfected his technique throughout the years, now on he takes numbers of photographs of his subject, which are then assembled to conform a unique photo collage without distortion of the main image, gluing all the images on a single sheet of archival paper, the final work consisted of the perfect graduation of many photographs to achieve his monumental man.
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Anthropological Nude Photomontage - Rolando, 2001. By Celso Castro
Rolando, 2001
From The series Buscando Papá.
Photomontage on archival paper
Dimensions: 39.5 H x 27.5 W in.
Unframed
Celso Castro is a referent of Colombian Caribbean art who has been drawing men for more than four decades, studying at the Pratt Institute in New York. In his works, Castro exalts the male genitalia, putting into tension the limits imposed by the sex/gender system that are part of an unquestioned patriarchal and phallocentric order. Most ment the ones he portrays are inhabitants of the Colombian coast, also constructing alternative ways of conceiving Latin American identity. By breaking taboos on corporality and male sexuality, his work has been censored on many occasions due to public accusations of immorality and pornography.
