Jose Carlos Soto

I have already commented that this photographic project that I had left parked for some years, would serve as a prologue to the new season of Carpa and the appearance of the number 1588.

My intention is to publish a few more numbers of these lighter series among the usual larger publications.

I know I should have posted yesterday, but an improvised trip in search of mushrooms, great success, everything is said, made it impossible.

Let Analia present the edition from her intro:

Carpa 74 has been the specimen selected by the author to open the 2022 season of this publication and newsroom. After the exhausting days working on the revisions of his beloved characters and saying goodbye to him, the author decided to present an edition that would serve as a link between the publications made five years ago, the oldest, and our present.
Carpa 74 was originally conceived in 2017 and, despite its brevity and simplicity, it never found its moment. Soto was unable to find a solid starting point from which to approach the project. In his mind, everything was ready for his appearance and this was one of the editions that always occupied his thoughts but, for unknown reasons, he could not express it as he would have wanted.
In mid-2018, it seemed that everything was ready for publication, he had found the necessary textual support in the work selected in Carpa 133 and a special edition of the project had been laid out by the artistic photography team. When the time came for the final review, Soto denied the project, a corpse, I affirm, presented to him by our colleagues. At no time, according to his own words, had they been able to capture the hidden spirit of the work: an extravagant carnal parade without meaning was offered to view and he preferred to close any debate and file, disappointed, his project.
I have commented during this month of August, how Paquita and Dorita connected instantly with the author. During those hectic summer days they seemed to become one and kept introducing me to wonder after wonder. In Paquita, Jose Carlos seems to have found the necessary order for his intrinsic chaos, although, at first, I thought that our fifth editor would be overwhelmed by the author's passionate character, quite the opposite happened, together with her, he has managed to find the necessary serenity to resume her work, after so long, and join as one more of my editors to this editorial step.

It is true that Paquita, like Consuelo, is a prominent member of the novelist genre, but with whom Soto works for many hours, in silence, and seems to reflect, is with Dorita. The elegant illustrator of Ante has been able to capture, as no one has done before, the broad aesthetic sense that permeates the author and that until they met, overflowed at the first opportunity, offering, most of the time, sublime moments but, also, , bitter disappointments resulting from that anxiety that devours him day after day.
It was not so surprising that in a few hours, after a cheerful snack, they prepare all the material for this Carpa 74 and, although the author was blocked for a few days by its cover, as I have already written, everything rushed after my visit to the hole of Peter Botero. At that time, the three of them decided to reserve the edition for after the publication of the last Seto de Valeria, it would serve as a photographic prologue to the new season and as a prelude to the first of the major Carpa, Carpa 1588, whose appearance is scheduled for the second season. fortnight of this month.
There is no doubt that we are facing one of the author's most cryptic and dark projects. When I was preparing this intro, I talked to him in order to capture the ultimate meaning of the brief project. For this reason, the author, unlike on other occasions, was not explicit at all, he preferred to dwell on how he took the photographs and other technical details than on his message. As in many other photo-poetic works, he maintains that the photographer should not act as a guide, it is the viewer who must immerse himself in the photographs and let himself be carried away by the multiple associations and memories that they trigger in his mind and thus open the door to unknown or forgotten thoughts. On the editorial stage, a subtle poetic moment arises or, perhaps, I should write, not poetic, for the enjoyment and reflection of the reader.
The digital photographs, original black and white, properly, we would speak of gray scale, were rephotographed on the screen of the author's old laptop, damaged by various incidents with carbonated drinks and impregnated with infinite iridescent textures. The author adds the textures of the battered screen to arrange an aesthetic wall that distances them from himself and universalizes his presence. Moments viewed through a screen, apparently identical to the thousands that surround us at every moment in our daily lives, but with them, Soto, seeks oblivion and shadow, no dDetail in the photographs must connect with your closest reality. The reader will thus ignore the presence of the artist and his space-time relationship with the work presented and will be able to make it his own from the first moment.
To reinforce his intentions, the author resorts to simple, diaphanous and concise poetic textual messages to build a common and open scenario that welcomes the reader after sliding his finger across the screen. This banal gesture, through the warm gray of this intro and presentation, will suddenly lead the reader or spectator, a subtle difference that Jose Carlos likes to point out, towards an unexpected space in which, perhaps, with astonishment and stupor, he will discover what that had been relegated and had never been proclaimed.

very nice work, José!