Juan delGado
Still from the video performance Who Are You Entertaining to? (2002)
Joe McConnell talks to Juan delGado about his cutting edge work using photography and video installation.
Juan delGado's work refers to social and cultural representations of sexuality, gender, and disability in Western society. Born in Spain, in 1965, delGado studied art in Valencia (Spain) and a MA in Contemporary Media at the University of Westminster. In his work delGado uses photography to explore how our (Western) culture has historically established a binary system of categorisation of gender, male and female. In Transformers (1995), he photographed people who transgress norms of appearance and behaviour in order to challenge our perceptions of gender representation.
In 1997, delGado began to experiment with film. Artists such as Isaac Julien, Shirin Neshat, and Jean Genet are of great influence in his work. He directed the experimental film The Passion of Teresa in which he develops his own style in a clear homage to the surrealist filmmaker Luis Bunuel focusing the tradition of representation of religious images in Spain. The film was selected at the 3rd Disability Film Festival, London, and Portobello Film Festival 2001. He also worked on The Wounded Image, a photographic project in which he explores the tension between representation of reality and fictional narrative in contemporary photographic practice. By addressing what he thinks has become a myth of our era, the fascination with violence, he attempts to raise questions of how we relate to issues such as trauma, homophobia, misogyny, and child abuse. This work was selected at the John Kobal Photographic Portraiture Awards in 1997 and has been exhibited at the Galeria Luis Adelantado, Spain, and Stills Gallery, Edinburgh.
In 2001, Juan directed an experimental film/video installation entitled Don't Look Under the Bed, exploring the subject of forbidden sexuality and social control. The film was screened on Channel 4 and at the Lux Cinema, London in September 2001.
In 2003, he created Flêches sans corps (Arrows without bodies), an interdisciplinary installation exploring the deeply traumatic experiences that many so-called illegal immigrants go through after leaving their homeland.
Current projects and exhibitions
last updated: 2006-12-16 00:00:00
tags : visual arts photography installation film