Rogelio Cuellar

1950 -

represented by The Loft Galeria

Rogelio Cuéllar, one of the artists with greater recognition and prestige in the international circuit of the photography, follower of the photographic tradition that undertook Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Tina Modotti, Héctor García, Nacho López and Mariana Yampolsky, visited recently Puerto Vallarta in order to participate with his work in Latin Visions, the erotic art festival celebrated in the city at the beginning of October with the support of five local galleries and the municipal city council.

His extensive trajectory in the photo journalism and the author photography started 34 years ago when he worked in the Revista de Revistas directed by Vicente Leñero, in the Excélsior de Julio Scherer, stage during which he obtained the National Prize of Journalism 1973 in the category of Graphic Report. After the pathetic governmental intervention that drove to the imposition of Regino Díaz Redondo in the newspaper direction Rogelio Cuéllar, in union of a group of real journalists leaded by Scherer, collaborates in the foundation of the weekly Proceso and, later and in La Jornada.

His personal work is oriented towards the photographic portrait and the artistic column. His will is to catch the creative process of the more outstanding artists and intellectuals, Mexicans as well as foreigners. In his work you can perceive the presence of the music,
the dance, Literature, the cinema, the poetry, the theatre and the photography itself in a constant of the quiet portrait, the one that by itself represents the creator. A number that overpasses half thousand of authors has been registered for the posterity with his
crystal lens: Juan Rulfo, Diego Rivera, Siqueiros, Salvador Novo and Xavier Villaurrutia, Fernando Botero, Tamayo, Gironella, Francisco Corzas, Belkin, Jaime Sabines and Gabriel García Márquez, among others. An anecdotic photography by Cuéllar that it has attracted to him, simultaneously, innumerable critics and good opinions, is the one that he made to Jorge Luis Borges in San Ildefonso while the author of El Aleph, standing in front of the toilet, was slow and carefully pissing.

The photographic mediation of Rogelio Cuéllar exceeds the theme of the portrait to approach the nude on its quotidian aspect: the body as a part of the landscape.
In this universe of forms usually it does not appear the face. The main interest relies in the pursuing of the angles, muscles and bones in an attempt of apprehension of the erotic force caused by the reflection of lights and shades. It is s search of the skin, lacking of earrings, necklaces, watches, and of all those objects not belonging to the existence in
its purer form. A sample of the 151 images that conforms the series Celebrations of the Light, exhibited in September in the Museo de las Artes of the Universidad de Guadalajara, is available in the Gallery Omar Alonso.

Cuéllar studied cinematography and plastic arts, as well as publicity and journalism in the UNAM. He was photographer of the Orquesta Filarmónica de las
Américas and the Mexico City Orchestra. He has made innumerable illustrations for books and cultural centres and published the books Huellas de una Presencia (1981), De frente y de perfil (1993) in collaboration with Miriam Moscona and Jaime Sabines
1994. He obtained the First place in the Biennial of Photography of the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, INBA (1980). In 1991 he obtained the scholarship of Intellectual Creators of the CONACULTA and in 1998 was selected like guest artist in the Straumur Art Commune of Iceland. In addition, he was member of the National System of Creators in the discipline of Visual Arts (1993).
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