In a new film from our New York Close Up series, photographer Elle Pérez ruminates on power of the photograph to capture the moments that words can’t describe. Shown highlighting excerpts from inspiring texts, reviewing prints, and creating large-scale wall collages of words and images, Pérez explains how they began photographing aspiring entertainment wrestlers in their native Bronx neighborhood. Pérez relates the scripted and choreographed nature of these wrestlers to their own process of creating portrait photography; “I don’t think there’s a way to involve a camera without immediately involving a kind of fiction,” explains Pérez.
This is the fourth in the series of five new Art21 films premiering throughout Winter 2019.
