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The same may not be so out west, suggests the camera of Hector Mata, who aimed his lens on Los Angeles for a series called L.A. Tinos. In one triptych, we see the Apple logo paired with an immigrant laborer, with urban buildings creating a gap in between.
Susanna Raab visited a rodeo outside of Houston, snapping shots of high-spirited festival revelers, working-class Mexican Americans in cowboy hats riding bulls standing in front of amazingly colorful wall murals.
Sol Aramendi on the other hand stayed home, taking photographs of herself dressed up, and in one case seemingly getting ready for a mermaid party. Normal, everyday life.
There are also behind-the-scenes portraits of glamorous actors from Mexican soap operas; a girl digging through her boyfriend’s drawer; a couple lying in newly fallen snow.
The most memorable, dramatic prints come from Dulce Pinzón: His giant Spiderman scaling the wall of a skyscraper, cleaning the window, hangs in the front of the gallery on Biscayne Boulevard, highly visible to the outside traffic. He depicts other superheroes in his scenes as well — there’s Superman on his bike with basket, the Incredible Hulk drilling on a construction site. One costumed hero is arresting a perp; another is hanging out in front of a peep show. In fact, other photographers in the show dress some of their subjects in comic-book attire as well.
While there is a humorous tone to all of these, they are also telling a compelling and relatable story about contemporary Latino life. There is nothing more American than Superman; the cultural icon has held the imagination of the country for more than half a century — and he has always held power. Immigrants and those outside mainstream culture rarely hold such power, but it’s a dream. In the meantime, one can dress up, don the fantasy, and get on a bike and go to work.
The photographer who goes by the singular name Calé also implies the lack of access to power, and loss of identity, when he blurs his subjects’ faces as they stand in front of cold cityscapes — in one instance in front of an enlarged image of a $100,000 bill.
The immigrant experience informs much of the work here, as it is something that still ties many of the various Latino communities in the United States together. Other cultural signifiers pop up as well — some religious Catholic iconography, faux-Baroque décor — but what is truly revealing is how disparate the images are of Latino life today. Five hundred years after the hybrid process began, the images look like everyday life in multicultural America, Latino and otherwise.
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