Paco y Manolo started out in professional photography like many other photographers: taking portraits of artists for different magazines of the ‘90s, whether it be the long-missed AB (predecessor to METAL) or Rockdelux, which is still in print. What happened is that, suddenly, the whole world fell in love with the sensibility of their objective, which is why it isn’t surprising that they would end up taking portraits of icons like Carlos Berlanga or Jarvis Cocker. And what happened, most of all is that Paco and Manolo took interest in taking portraits, but not so much the artist part.
PACO Y MANOLO, THE NUDE AS A WEAPON AGAINST FIGHTING THE NORM
Paco and Manolo are known masters of the portrait and are explorers of the male nude. Sometimes they’re put under the LGBTQI art umbrella, but that appreciation results to be too limited if we take into account the reach of their work… We talk about this (and so much more) with them in our interview.
And that’s how their most personal project was born: the well-known Kink magazine, where they explore the male nude in all of its wonder. Their vision of the nude comes from long before, from the time that their book Common People showed a group of naked people in their homes with the intent of making the body and its surroundings the ones that would exude personality and not the clothes. That vision of the nude, added to Paco and Manolo’s own vision of sexuality, is what ended up culminating in Kink, that already has an outstanding 30 issues behind them.
In fact, in recent times, we’ve had to add to Kink the stimulating Fac Simile , a new publication in which these photographers explore the possibilities of the Polaroid format, and Rainboy, a fanzine in photocopy and risograph. Because their work is all about movement, and that’s exactly what we wanted to talk to them about.
Let’s start from the beginning… When did a photo camera first ever fall in your hands and which was the first photo you took that made you feel like photographers?
Just like many other people from our generation, our first photo camera was a gift from our first communion. Paco’s was a Polaroid camera, and mine was a Kodak Instamatic. Paco was the first one to take this seriously, taking pictures of his friends; then I joined him. At first, we weren’t very sure of what we wanted to do, but we presented our book to several magazines and they contacted us. We always believed that we were going to do well because the first photograph we took that we wanted to get published eventually got into the hands of Carlos Berlanga, who we were big fans of (we took photos of him for Self). The next day Astrud, who had just released their first single, came to our house, and we took photos of them for AB. With these two sessions we thought: We’ve made it! This was 20 years ago. We were very naïve. We now know that a picture does not make a career. But, if somebody had told me this before, I wouldn’t have believed them. Young people are bold and aren’t conscious of some things.
In the year 2014, you presented an exhibition called Preludio. In hindsight, what was Preludio exactly about?
In the year 2004, we did an exhibition called Los días veloces. In it, we talked about how quickly time goes by. With Preludio we wanted to close the circle we had opened before. At that moment we were living a prelude of our own maturity, the end of our youth.
With the maturity that you now have, do you explore themes that you weren’t interested before in your youth?
Our work is mostly nostalgic. It evokes the past, but not as we’ve lived it, but idealising something that was never real. Each time we’re more concentrated, more intimate and closed off. Less radiant. We suppose that that has a lot to do with the passing of time. And still, we’ve always focused on the same subjects, even though we now approach them in a different way.
The nude is still the basis of your art. Why do you think that it’s an artistic field that can never be exhausted? Or do you believe that you’ve ever reached the ceiling with it?
We’ve always been interested in depicting people by omitting the way they show themselves to others. Clothes have always seemed like an obstacle to us, a mask, and we prefer that our models show themselves just like they are. We work with the nude as a metaphor of how we face the world. We see this even more in the projects that we display, like Kink, for example, where we introduce sex as a pretext to take portraits, which is what we enjoy the most. That is why we always say that Kink is a portrait magazine.
Your nude, however, explores much more than the beauty of the body. It explores, as is mentioned in your book called Common People (and how you’re explaining now), the possibility of capturing the personality of a person without the clothes, which is normally the medium with which we express our personality. Is this exploration still a running thread in your work?
We explore intimacy. The beauty of the body isn’t something that we’re especially interested in. When somebody asks us to take photos of them, we normally tell them that, if they want to look good in the photo, there are other photographers that can do that. We look for reality and intimacy. And we’re doing that even more because the naked body is becoming public. Today, sex is a social fact, relegating intimacy to other aspects of life. And yet, we’re trying to find what’s left of intimacy, still, through the nude and sex. As I’ve said before, we start off through portraits. In our case, self-portraits with which, ultimately, what we see in our photos of nudes and sex isn’t the intimacy of the person being depicted, but ours. In Kink, for example, we basically show our way of facing sex. In a natural way, without fetishisms, happy and without prejudices.
Have you ever felt that your work is important when it comes to opening the erotic view of men outside of heteronormativity?
For us, it’s important to show that there are different ways of facing sex outside of heteronormativity. There are many examples of hetero guys who appear in Kink, surrounded by gay guys and showing a sexuality that is mostly going to be enjoyed by gay guys. They aren’t afraid of being labelled, and we find that amazing. This would have been very hard just a few years ago, but the world’s changing so much and we think that we’re taking part in it. We love that.
Why do you think you’re seen as gay role models? Does the exploration of the male naked body have to be gay per se? Is there an active vindication in your work or is that something that is thought of by others?
We’re all political beings. The very fact of existing makes you a political being. We’re gay, we’re openly gay in our lives, and we work with the naked male body. We feel very comfortable where we are in the world. We’re actively fighting to defend our rights.
In your photography, there’s obviously also an element of capturing that moment that can already speak for itself. In such a long career like yours, do you manage to capture that moment frequently or is it something that you’re always chasing?
As I said before, a photograph does not make a career. But there are photographs that are worth a career. Almost all the photographers that we love have iconic images. We believe that we also have a few. And once in a while, one comes around. That’s something we’re not looking for. We always let ourselves get carried away by the situation, we’re never prepared, but sometimes the planets align and we get one of those images. That’s an incredible sensation.
Kink has reached its 30th issue, which means that it reached its legal age a long while ago and its attaining maturity… At which vital stage does your project find itself?
Kink is a project that started out in an exhibition, we never thought it would last this long. It’s now at a very good moment. We have points of sale in 12 countries. And yet, what we want is for Kink to get better each time, we want it to keep being a challenge for us.
At this point, everyone already knows about Kink. But, if you had to describe the magazine to someone who knows nothing about it, what would you say?
We always say that Kink is a magazine of male erotica, but people never really fully get it. There are many magazines of naked men in the market, but we believe that Kink is different. And what makes it different is that this is a very personal project. We fully pour ourselves into it and that is conveyed in some way, which is why it’s very difficult to explain.
You now also have another project that is also going very well, Fac Simile, centred on the Polaroid format. What does this format have that has become another great exploration of yours?
It’s immediate, unpredictable and unique. Fac Simile is a project of ten installments that, together, form a book of polaroids. It’s like one of those kiosk collections that we used to do as kids. We’ve also just started Rainboy, a fanzine in photocopy and risograph, which we’re going to edit into 7 different limited-edition issues. Soon we’re going to release the second issue.
We’re in the LGBTQI Pride month… Are you the type to unconditionally join these celebrations or the ones that, of course, have a critical vision about it?
Pride is necessary. We always join and enjoy it, even though we’re very critical about it. We’ll defend it to death despite the fact that the party aspect is more important than the activism and we’re not thrilled about that. We also don’t like uniformity, like everything else the gay world is: diverse, and that isn’t reflected in Pride’s program. And we won’t even talk about the concerts. But still, you’ll find us there.
Do you think that an artist should use their voice and power to add to this type of activism?
Always, we see it as our duty.
