La luna del cóndor. Retrospectiva 1974-2024.

La luna del cóndor. Retrospectiva 1974-2024.

This retrospective exhibition offers an in-depth reading of the work of Javier Silva Meinel, one of the most important Peruvian photographers of recent decades. Over more than 50 years of career, Silva Meinel has developed a unique perspective that draws on the modernist photography he cultivated at the beginning of his career within the group linked to Assorti Fotogaleria and its encounter with the cultural diversity of Peru and the rich tradition of photography from the Peruvian Southern Andean.

Focusing on portraits staged with backdrops, in the manner of former photographic portrait studios, the work of Silva Meinel brings into dialogue the tradition of the Andean portrait with contemporary strategies of representation. More than capturing the real, his images establish spaces of representation where identity, rite and time intersect. Silva Meinel is situated in a space halfway between distance from the foreigner and proximity of the participant, embodying an ethic of encounter (morning, in Quechua) with his portraits. His work oscillates between documentary and theatrical, intimate and symbolic.

From a selection of 140 images, the exhibition highlights the attention that Silva Meinel has devoted to ritual in Peruvian culture and accompanies his journey through the pilgrimage of Qoyllur Riti, the celebrations of the Virgen del Carmen in Paucartambo, the Holy Week in the Colca canyon or the Virgen de la Candelaria in Puno, among others. He also gives a special place to his practice of portraiture and his use of backdrops, and grants him a remarkable seat in his photographic essay on Machu Picchu.

Overall, the work of Silva Meinel constitutes a symbolic space where photography is both testimony, fiction and rite of knowledge. The exhibition proposes him as an heir and renovator of the Andean photographic tradition and as the creator of a visual language specific to the cultural tensions of contemporary Peru.

Curators: Carlo Trivelli and Jorge Villacorta