After nearly twenty years in the commercial and fashion photography business, and being an anthropologist by training, Alejandro Arango looked for a way to subvert the fashion ‘beauty’ codes and cliches from within, by putting into play model hair and hairstyle, and using it against the very industry and diverse cultures it has been hostage to; be it those cultures flaunting it, or those going out of their way to hide it. The keratin that makes up the hair in humans, also makes the rhinoceros horn, and throughout the ages that fabled animal stoked the imagination of the ‘civilized world’ by its exoticism and elusiveness. Painted by Raphael, and drawn by Durer from a mere description, the printing process made the artist’s fame throughout Europe, art history, and literature, and from novelty became a symbol of conformism and the lack of free thought, and in Ionesco’s play.

In Keratinism, Arango hijacks the hair and hairstyles to a Lack the very essence of what makes the mendacity of contemporary civilization, be it Western or not. 

About the artist

Alejandro Arango (b.1975) is a Colombian visual artist who explores social issues of the contemporary world through the point of view of symbolic interactionism, and what he calls ‘the paradox of the the faceless’. Having studied cinematography and art direction in U.S. schools, he got a degree in anthropology in his home country, and had a fruitful career in photography, and advertising, all the while having since 2015 several solo exhibitions in Latin America, and the Middle-East. His current art projects are Keratinism, and Aguamala.

Vernissage : September 10th | 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm 

Exhibition : Sep 10th | Sep 20th

Opening hours : 

-Monday 2:00 | 6:00 pm

-Tuesday to Saturday | 11:00 am | 6:00 pm