Papo Colo
Puerto Rican, born 1946Photogenics: Photopoems, 1979
Not on view
Duotone on paper
Dimensions14 × 11 in. (35.6 × 27.9 cm)
Gift of Mr. Jack B. Pierson, 1990.2.1.4
This work, part of a portfolio titled Photogenics: Photopoems were designed in conjunction with another portfolio entitled Photogenics: Acting as Behavior, and explores the relationship between text and image. Rather than employing photography to illustrate written content, Colo depicts himself as the product of his own biography, incorporating a narrative to lend credence to his gesture. In this image, holding a plaster half-mask to his face, Colo comments on the association of external characteristics (like facial expressions) with internal qualities (such as charisma). In doing so, he likens this nuanced relationship to the discrepancies of visual and textual dialog, and expresses his respect for the trans community’s ability to recreate identity through bodily manipulation.
Indeed, both Colo’s artwork and business practices reflect his support of the LGBTQ community. In 1982 he cofounded Exit Art with Jeanette Ingberman. Closed in 2012, Exit Art was a non-profit cultural center and gallery in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood, which endeavored to support artists whose ideas and identities fell outside the social, sexual, and stylistic norms of the art world. Along with other artists and activists working in the 1980s, Colo’s projects helped to humanize gay and queer people, and would come to influence governmental policies and legislation.
