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Belleza de Barrio

by Ricardo Cases

Photographs: Ricardo Cases

Text: Luis Lopez, Javier Izquierdo, Miguel Gutierrez and Javier Parra

Publisher: Universidad de Extremadura

104 pages

Year: 2008

ISBN: 978-84-613-1841-4

Price: 34 20.40 €

Comments: English, Spanish, 22,5 x 33,5 cm, hardcover, first edition of 1000 copies.

We often talk about canons of beauty or standards of beauty and when we talk about them what we are really talking about is an official, unique style, with referents imposed by glossy magazines.
But at the end of the day beauty is a virtue that is imposed at birth. You either got it or you don’t and today’s attempt to transform it under the surgeon’s knife risk of turning the aspirant to belated beauty into a designer eyesore.
One of the people portrayed here told me that “beauty is about self-esteem; it’s about feeling you look good for yourself not for anyone else”. If we depart from the premise that all aesthetic judgements are equal, in “Neighborhood Belle” I put aside any personal prejudices and seek beauty by following a criteria that is not my own. I leave behind my assumptions, shaped by the commercial filtres of advertising, and try to reach the inner being of each person, encouraging them to be beautiful, to reveal their idea of beauty: the beauty they wish to project in their surroundings, in their neighborhood. The beauty they wish to see reflected in the mirror at home.

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