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LC: I was thinking this morning that there's a recurring theme of a masquerade of sorts in all your work, and darkness to a lesser degree. I was reminded of Edgar Allan Poe's Masque of the Red Death, an allegorical poem about a masquerade ball where everyone is killed one by one by the Red Death.
RA: The darkness in my work is very natural. Everything comes from childhood. LC: Pageants? RA: Yes, there was a morbidity in pageants, a superficiality. They were national events in Latin America, more than now, completely front page news. I remember it would be an official holiday in the town with the mayor at the parade as she [pageant contestant] arrives. I loved the idealized beauty and how they were dressed. LC: Did you ever want to be in a pageant? RA: No, just patriotic for the ones who were from where I was from. If they didn't win, there would be crying. I remember their pictures would be displayed in windows of the town and I would always love to run and look at them. They were black and white and they were beautifully done and so forth. They don't do it like that anymore. But it was interesting that I was so much about going to see those photographs. I had no aspirations at the time to become a photographer. |
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