Pedro Lange-Churión
Photography

The photographs

Far from being an objective register of reality, photography reveals a fragment of life captured by the click of the shutter, while also revealing the photographer's way of looking at the world. It is not easy to represent the past without material traces, or to give visibility to victims made invisible by a collective historical amnesia. Pedro Lange-Churión seeks to embody in his images the victim’s suffering for the absence of the loved one, in order to challenge with these protratis the adamant indifference of Spanish society towards this crime. These ideas guided Lange-Churión’s search for the appropriate aesthetic code. 

The subjects shine against a black background. The psychological depth of  Baroque portraiture is evident in their poses, their gestures and, above all, their piercing gazes. These aesthetic elements take on an allegorical meaning: the dark background from which the figures emerge simultaneously isolates and affirms them. Such is their quest: despite the State and society’s insistence not to see them, the victims -mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, brothers and sisters- do not rest. In these large portraits, we cannot avoid their presence; they loom large and lit, looking at us, demanding answers.