Torero Cordero

15 / 50 by Pablo Pérez Mínguez, 1972

Torero Cordero, © Herederos de Pablo Pérez-Mínguez, VEGAP, Madrid, 2021

Photographer Pablo Pérez-Mínguez narrated in first person the effervescence that society experienced during the Movida Madrileña movement. Provocation and colorful aesthetics were part of his unmistakable style.

This photograph Torero Cordero was forged one afternoon in 1972. An open field near Barajas airport was the chosen location. Poet Ignacio Gómez de Liaño accepted to become a bullfighter for a day, dressed in a wig and a mask, holding a sheep. The resulting image is loaded with symbolism: a man turning his back on the archetype of that period. A true provocation.

Together with his college friend and designer Carlos Serrano, he set up the Nueva Lente magazine, a true artistic revolution with which they contributed to the expansion of a new language, bringing a different perspective to Spanish photography. Pérez-Mínguez was one of the biggest supporters of incorporating this discipline into art galleries. Thanks to all his efforts to renew visual language, he was awarded Spain’s National Photography Award in 2006.