Paula Delgado, Uruguay. “Cómo sos tan lindo” [How Come You Are so Beautiful]

The images presented to A-A-H! are part of the Project called “Cómo sos tan lindo” [How Come You Are so Beautiful], that I’m developing since year 2005. The project explores the masculine universe in its relation to aesthetics and body culture, in a moment of deep changes in the definition of masculinity worldwide. ‘How Come You Are so Beautiful’ is itinerant. It has already taken place in three South American cities: Montevideo (2005), Buenos Aires (2006) and Valparaíso (2007) and one European city: Vienna (2008). The images presented to A-A-H! show men from Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Austria, Germany, Egypt, Bosnia. Men from three different continents, showing their own way of being beautiful. The project starts in every city with a call through ads on the newspapers: “Attractive men wanted, for photo sessions”. The photos and interviews take place always in a hotel room, the hotel as a global space; impersonal though intimate. The intention is that the definition of beauty is given by the visiting men themselves. They initiate the attitudes, looks and poses; and, most important, they are there because they deem themselves attractive, by answering the ad. They don’t get a fee for participating in the video, they do it by their own will. There is no selection, all attendants have part in the project. Nobody is rejected. During the photo sessions I am alone with each attending man. I take the pictures and hold the interviews. The same experience is repeated in every city. In relationship to these I ask: How do men from each different country live in relationship to their body, and with their physical image? Which role do culture and mass media stereotypes play in each one of them? Does a common idea exist of what “being attractive” is? Do they follow local aesthetic patterns or imported patterns proposed by the global media? The work shows the influence of culture and –within it- the value of aesthetics on men’s self perception. The project is a tribute to masculine beauty. Beautiful, attractive, seducing; as much as they want to feel themselves or as the public wishes to see them. The treatment of the image is not an advertising–like one. I prefer a domestic image, untainted by commercial treatment. The work challenges the internal structures of gender construction, showing men in ways that we are not usually exposed to. .........................................CV................................. I’m a visual artist born in Montevideo, Uruguay. I’ve exhibited my works since 1999 in galleries and Museums in Uruguay and abroad. I’ve attended several workshops on visual arts, but I consider myself an autodidact. I’m a researcher and teacher at the National University in Uruguay, in the field of Cultural Industries and Culture Economics. On my individual projects I’ve always been interested in the construction and deconstruction of gender stereotypes, working mostly with video, photography and performance art. Besides my individual projects, I work since 2003 in collaborative projects with Julia Castagno, with whom I’ve organized the first contemporary art exhibition in street billboards in Montevideo: ‘Expansiva’, project financed by the French Embassy in Uruguay (Prix Paul Cézanne) in 2004. (http://boladenieve.org.ar/?q=node/4901). From march to may 2008, I am an Artist in Residence at the Museums Quartier, in the city of Vienna. ( http://quartier21.mqw.at/kuenstlerstudios ) My last work ‘How Come You Are so Beautiful’, is part of the book “No sabe/No contesta. Contemporary photographic practices from Latin America” edited by Rodrigo Alonso and presented in May 2008 in ARTEBA, Buenos Aires art fair.