This article explores the work of Ruven Afanador (b. 1959), a Colombian photographer who is very well known abroad. His portraits typically tend to reinterpret the body, creating images that are suggestive and enigmatic. Jaime Cerón (b. 1967), who is a curator and art historian as well as a critic, has this to say in his article: “From his choice of models, accessories, locations, cultural referents, and props, Afanador demonstrates his desire to redefine the role of the body as a detonator of inter-subjective experience and to confront it with a range of identities among which we can consciously include humanity.”
Afanador is a photographer who lives in New York, where he creates the work that is now (in 2010) recognized by all the major fashion houses and magazines. In 2002, Fotomuseo in Bogotá organized an exhibition of his work to tie in with the fashion event, Bogotá Fashion. Among his other accomplishments, he has three books to his credit—Torero (2001), Sombras (2004), and Mil besos (2009)—in which he shares insights into private worlds through black and white portraits combined with basic technical elements that hark back to the earliest days of photography. He uses overexposures, vignettes, and tones to reveal a personal vision of strange characters in a cross section of everyday life, fantasy, and sensuality.
Fotomuseo is a private organization that has been operating in Bogotá since 1998. It organizes open air exhibitions using modules arranged in public spaces; it produces Fotomaratón, a competition in which professional and amateur photographers present their vision of Bogotá, the capital city; and since 2005, it has presented Fotográfica, an exhibition and theoretical event at which artists and thinkers debate subjects that are relevant to the medium in question.
Jaime Cerón studied for his master’s degree in history and theory of art and architecture at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. He was manager of the visual arts department at the Instituto Distrital de Cultura y Turismo in Bogotá (1997−2007). He is currently (in 2010) a freelance curator and researcher and a guest professor in the modern and contemporary art history program at the Universidad de los Andes at Bogotá.