Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Mexican Wrestling as Art


Santos refused to be photographed!

NPR : Mexican Wrestling as Art

Day to Day, November 7, 2005 � In a bookstore in the funky California beach town of Venice, larger-than-life-sized color photographs of masked Mexican wrestlers are the focal point of a very different art exhibit.

Malcolm Venville photographed about 150 'Lucha Libre' wrestlers for an upcoming book. Translated literally, 'lucha libre' means 'free fighting.' To many Latinos, it's professional wrestling, vaudeville, a venerable cinema genre and the Bushido code of the Japanese Samurai all wrapped up in one campy and crowd-pleasing spectacle.

Venville has made those campy characters into art objects. Equator Books has 13 of his highly detailed wrestler photos on display -- including Astro Boy, Super Pinocho 3000, Raziel, Super Porky and Coco Verde, the green clown.

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