KVT – Miguel Trillo and Young Faces at Chula

KVT immersed in portraits of YOUTH

One of the few in Hanoi ateliers that is its own work of art and could be dismantled then reassembled and exhibited as a wow factor in any world class art biennale is CHULA on the wave lapped western shores of West Lake

At present, but only for a day more, Chula is hosting a series of excellent portrait photographs by 60 something and very famous Spanish photographer, MIGUEL TRILLO about whom it is said: His in-your-face portraits invite us to contemplate tribal markers and urban culture in an increasingly globalized world

Trillo’s has been a portraitist most of his adulthood- as well as having a career as a high school teacher from which he retired only recently; a career that put him in close touch with the age group of his original portrait characters….the 15 to twenties…..The Spanish youngsters from his first documentary portraits in the 1970ies are now middle agers who are either proudly displaying Trillo’s images of themselves to their grandkids or hide them in embarrassment in a trunk under the bed

Trillo has been documenting young people and their alternative fashion choices since the end of the ultra conservative Franco era in Spain when there was a surge in counterculture identity usually based on the music listened to by particular youth groups. Because of their truth and accuracy, selections from Trillo’s anthropological collection of prints are often used to illustrate books and film documentaries about particular eras and are used by film directors to establish an authentic ‘look’

Trillo documented the evolution of young urban tribes of Spain and its border countries from periods of transition towards democracy and in latter years has also shifted locational focus to other countries that are undergoing similar transitions. Thus his anthropological documentary portraits have included Morocco and the United Arab Republic, and in the past ten years have had a focus on east Asia with return trips to the Philippines and Vietnam

From here on are images from the show at Chula featuring young Vietnamese…ages are indeterminate… but as in all Trillo’s photographs they depict adolescents and young adults searching for and asserting their identities through clothing, attitude, and behavior, reflecting the contradictions of a society that has played with experimentation in a time of profound transformation.

His subjects initially were the young who generally remained aloof from social and political contexts…who wanted nothing to do with rules or impositions and who wanted to blaze new trails of expression through music that united and identified them …generally a generation who were there to enjoy themselves, and specifically to express a sense of life and liberty. Anyone under 70 who enjoyed the freedom of an adolescence and young adult hood in most western democracies can relate to similar periods in their own lives before the responsibilities of careers, families and more conservative mindsets made them less tolerant.

An interesting observation is that youth cultures may now have their genesis less determined by music trends and more often cut and paste from world wide observations of fashion trends and rebellious statements culled from the immediacy of the web and infiltrated by localized variations and innovations

When you look at Trillo’s images taken in one or two consecutive years from different parts of the world, it may be impossible to determine geographic placement. Is this a delicious denouement to the melting pot theory attached to early 20th century migration to America…wherein now the melting pot is not a stew of purely European ness, but a rich, thick soup of all faces and places?

I guess there are other transitional places emerging that Trillo would love to get his lens focused onto to discover and document what the young are up to and in his intimative way allow us to look into the way in which those countries are beginning to forge new identities

Curator of his work say: His photos compose a generic vision of a society in constant transformation…and I’d particularly like to see his contemporary portraits of youth in places like Spain that are now in another, a desperate, transitional phase where youth unemployment is over 50% and political climates are apparantly becoming ultra right wing

Click here for some of Trillo’s Spanish portraits.

Once Trillo had decided that this generational focus was to become his oeuvre he traveled around Spain seeking out the odd, different and normal youngsters who were inhabiting the streets and recorded that Francoism had been overtaken by mods, punks, goths, rappers and heavy metal freaks

As one reviewer stated: From Madrid to Manila, from Leon to Tokyo, from Barcelona to Beijing Trillo`s models pose proud, self-confident, with the juvenile arrogance of those who have all the time in the world and no strings attached. Punks, mods, metalheads, rockers, rappers or members of some unclassifiable Japanese subculture: the greatness of Trillo`s work is showing how much those youths have in common despite time, distance and differences.

Miguel Trillo has, as if an anthropologist of globalization, mapped a territory where the stars are the people in the street. His work on social groups is a map, but it is also a score. Chords, distortion, rhyme, beat and rhythm seem to emerge from his photographs. Maybe that is why his pictures have illustrated so many music books. Because music is, above all, a means of communication, of putting a musician and a listener in touch. The originality of Miguel Trillo`s work lies in establishing that the power to generate idols, fashion and trends is in the hands of the listeners. Their attitude, looks, corporality and objects are the pillars on which music, and thus youth, rest.

Trillo’s photographs are usually the results of chance encounters with the subjects, and after an interesting backdrop has been chosen, the photographer asks the subject to look directly into the camera lens and hold a pose that personalizes them. From many images taken, Trillo confers with the subject as to the ones he may use in exhibition or book form.

There is an intimacy between the viewer and the subject. At times you are dared to look. At others the fragility is keen and painful. Some say defiantly that this is ME. Some seem to be hoping to discover just who they are.

They are indeed IN-YOUR-FACE

Trillo has stated that: ‘a youngster can lie with words, but not with his clothes, these give himself away’

Although the exhibition is on its last legs and if you are a serious photographer and haven’t caught it then its worthwhile getting a couple of Miguel Trillo Photography books just to see how important choosing a background is and…. just how a brilliant portrait can be

A recent YOU TUBE documentary of Miguel Trillo being interviewed at MANZI

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7isKMmArps[/youtube]

CHULA STARTS ANOTHER PORTRAIT SERIES TOMORROW

Exhibition “Through the Windows of Life”