15 works to celebrate Art with Pride: Javier Díaz Guardiola x RedCollectors

Once again, on the occasion of the Pride Festival, Javier Díaz-Guardiola , journalist, critic and curator, presents a selection of 15 works to celebrate and collect LGTBIQ+ art. Among those chosen are works by Pedro Almodóvar, Colita, Cristina Toledo, David Trullo, among others. Javier Díaz-Guardiola is currently coordinator of the art, architecture and design section of ABC Cultural, editor-in-chief of ABC de ARCO.

"I have tried to make a transversal selection that does not only include LGTBI creators, but also other artists who have dealt with these issues or who deal with topics, such as race or female discrimination, in which the basis of hatred used by a certain sector of the heteropatriarchy is the same one that is used, consciously or unconsciously, to subjugate, degrade or humiliate people because of their sexual orientation."

- Javier Diaz-Guardiola-

Do you want to learn about Javier Díaz-Guardiola's selection? This Thursday, June 22 at 7 p.m. he will explain it to us via Zoom : I want to sign up for the talk!

Pepe Espaliu

"Espaliú turned his "Carrying" into an icon of the fight against the stigmatization of those affected by HIV, but we cannot forget that he was also a good sculptor. This work bears witness to this and to his concern for the body, reflecting through this technique his interests in suffering, injury, isolation and pleasure" -Javier Díaz-Guardiola-

Joana Biarnes

"I chose Joana for being a pioneer in many ways, including being one of the first Spanish female photojournalists, which forced her to make her way into a man's world, and for having photographed a large number of gay icons from past generations, such as Marisol and Ava Gardner. Speaking of icons, it is inevitable to mention in this same gallery "El baño del Charlton Heston" by Ramón Massats, a nude 'in stages', long before the arrival of the Destape" -Javier Díaz-Guardiola-

Cristina Toledo

"In her last solo show at Cámara Oscura Galeria de Arte, Cristina Toledo, through painting, addressed the topics of "femininity" and what is considered feminine. It is interesting that a piece like this is included in this gallery of portraits, especially in the face of the howls of a certain radical feminism that seems to be in charge of issuing the cards of suitability on what is or is not a woman, forgetting alternative realities" -Javier Díaz-Guardiola-

Hugh Mangum

"Since the mechanisms that drive hatred are the same against sexual or gender identity as against race, I include this American photographer who, at the end of the 19th century, dared to portray whites and blacks on equal terms, restoring dignity to the latter" -Javier Díaz-Guardiola-

David Trullo

"This author, a 'false' photographer and appropriator of images, has received little recognition for his role in the elaboration of a genealogy of queerness in Spain, generating reference models in which the LGTBI community can see itself reflected and proposing an alternative reading to official history." -Javier Diaz-Guardiola-

Juan Cabello Arribas

"Collagist, the best of both worlds, Brazil, where he spent a season, and Spain, his current residence, merge in "Madrid Río", where the most iconic architectures of the city merge with the bodies of the boys from the beaches of the South American country. Winks and surprises guaranteed in the rest of his eclectic and baroque proposals" -Javier Díaz-Guardiola- 

Juan Carlos Martinez

"Tribute to a young artist whose passing shocked us all at the beginning of the year. With his photography, Martínez sought what Bresson called "the precise moment," a special light and beauty that put the male body in the foreground, acting as a hunter-voyeur of unrepeatable moments" -Javier Díaz-Guardiola-

Pedro Almodovar

"Behind every great filmmaker there must always be a good photographer. Ultimately, it's about composing images, whether in a fixed shot or in motion. The director from La Mancha, a great art collector, is also a lover of this technique, with which he composes still lifes that he has even included in some of his films" -Javier Díaz-Guardiola-

Olalla Gomez Valdericeda.

"Eloquent series in which the young creator analyses verbal violence, focusing our attention on the relationship between weapons and many of the terms used to refer to male genitals. Along the same lines, 'Men of Health' relates great myths of thought and literature with unorthodox behaviour towards women (or homosexuals), since, as she mentions: "Aggressors are not sick, but healthy children of the patriarchy" -Javier Díaz-Guardiola-

Angel Pantoja

"Specialized in scenes where reality merges with dreams, paying special attention to the body, this painter offers with 'Binaryland' an ironic cartography to confront and orient oneself among unknown realities that go beyond the canonical conceptions of man-woman" -Javier Díaz-Guardiola-

Pilar Aymerich

"National Photography Award in 2021, the documentary work of this photojournalist with a marked political content on the reality of the LGTBI community in the late seventies is worth mentioning. In addition to this look at transsexuality, hers is also, present in RedCollectors, the series about the first carnivals allowed in Spain in Vilanova after the Civil War. It was the year 1973. Transvestism, with consent and treachery, in abundance" -Javier Díaz-Guardiola-

Little tail

"Colita is another of the great names in documentary photography in our country. These images are his, in which one of the protagonists is Ocaña, a mythical character of the gay world of the Transition in Spain, and of the first demonstration for the rights of the collective in Barcelona in 1977, also available on the platform" -Javier Díaz-Guardiola-

Juanjo Martinez Canovas

Alex Domènech

"This creator began in the cinematographic field, but later realized that he was more interested in still images. Through photography, he analyzes his daily life and sketches a kind of logbook in which intimacy is humanized and brought to the foreground" -Javier Díaz-Guardiola-

Federico Granell

"To enter the watercolors of this author's notebooks is to immerse yourself in a wonderful world with its own soundtrack. And it is inevitable that, in some of its pages, one comes across the exaltation of love, even of a homosexual couple. Because everyone has the right to live their own movie scene" -Javier Díaz-Guardiola-

Visit the exhibition in 3D