Gloria Mundi

Boxeadores

The series of portraits of boxers in a working-class sport club in Chile, are arguably among the most famous images of Paz Errazuriz career. They personify the physical sacrifice of exercise as they stand in front of the camera in heroic poses and an empty, absent, gaze. The artist captures a performative representation of masculinity, and explore the stereotypes that determine the acceptance and desire to belong into the institutions that regulate social live.

During her career, Paz Errázuriz had the habit of printing a smaller version of her most important series. These small editions, sometimes only up to two or three copies of each picture, often include alternative photographs that were not included in the main series. They are all vintage silver prints that have been in the artist’s studio since their production.

Exéresis

Exéresis is one of the few photographic series that Errázuriz took outside of Chile. These pictures of antique sculptures were taken in several museums across Europe and the United States. The artist’s interest is focused in the torsos of male statues which genitals are missing —”Exeresis” meaning the surgical removal of any part of the body or organ. The reason or historical circumstances where these statues lost their penis is not relevant for this matter. The series evokes a masculinity that is defaced and no longer heroic or triumphant; replaced by an ambiguous genderless body.

La manzana de Adán

During the 1980s, Paz Errázuriz engaged in one of her most celebrated series of photographs. Over several years, she regularly visited the transvestite workers of different brothels in Chile, and created a strong bond of trust and friendship that allowed her to document this very intimate scene. Her presence during the nighttime parties, and the everyday life of the models, was not that of a voyeur, but rather an ally. Errázuriz kept a long-lasting friendship with two of them, Evelyn and Pilar, that are portrayed many times in the most iconic images of the series.

The artist received a Salomon R. Guggenheim scholarship that allowed her to complete this project. The pictures, however, remained unpublished until 1990, the subject being considered too subversive by the authorities. La manzana de Adán includes different series of both black and white and color photographs, capturing the essence of a bold and resilient community.

Originally, some of the photographs were printed using the Cibachrome technique, a discontinued positive-to-positive photographic process used for the reproduction of film transparencies on photographic paper. A modern edition of the complete color series allows to discover many nuances to the intimate daily life of their protagonists in full color: the parties, the make up, their private lives, etc.

El circo

This series reveals the particular interest that Paz Errázuriz has always taken for portraying groups of people that function outside of the regular paths of society. Her photographs, documenting the backstage of a Chilean traveling circus, shows the ambition to create a dazzling illusion with the precarious means of a poor production. Errázuriz’s work in this series shows a very compelling vision of this masquerade, with an overall feeling of surreal oddness.

Luchadores del ring

For the production of this series, Paz Errázuriz travelled the north of Chile in a bus with a group of wrestlers. This experience gave her the opportunity to witness a totally hidden side of the wrestling business, their private environment. Aside of the fighting characters that these men impersonate on the ring, the artist is able to unveil a family life, wives and children that travel with them, and a certain singularity in their way of living. Instead on putting her focus in the strength or the performance, Errázuriz chooses the intimacy and fragility.