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Extreme Latin Dose – part I and part II

Pigment inkjet print
13” by 22” and 12” by 36”
1999

This work involves the process of appropriating imagery from Foto-novelas -- a popular “real-life comic-book” form of storytelling which combines a written storyline with scene-by-scene photo-illustrations. The written narratives usually involve some type of moral posturing which runs counter to the sexualized, and in general, stylized rendering of the characters and situations -- this counter movement results in an overlap between the two modes of telling, an overlap heightened by the differential tone of the image and the ultimate moral lesson embodied in the written word. It is within this overlap that the narratives, the Foto-novelas, achieve the pleasurable affect of entertainment by titillating with the obscene while simultaneously expounding a moral lesson.

The appropriated imagery from the Foto-novelas is presented as a photographic print rather than in its original book form. The particular narratives are replaced in favor of a larger implied narrative which doesn’t progress or regress, but rather intensifies particular moments with the reorganization of the original imagery, digital manipulation and the introduction of foreign visual material.