Daniel Weinstock
Those Images
Throughout his career Daniel Weinstock has tested the boundaries between pain and art. Conferring to human pain an artistic quality that surreptitiously engages the viewer in social and psychological analysis. Dissecting his images is not simple. Once they had entangled us in a web that is a mix of pain and beauty, instinctively reacting to them seems to be the only sane option. A concept that since the primitive to medieval religious art, has turned suffering into social and religious icons. Since his early works, Daniel Weinstock's photography invites us to suffer, while the color or juxtaposition of images, techniques all favored by Mr. Weinstock, helps us to secretly enjoy the images, guided by the serenity of the hand behind the lens. Once inside the image, its morbid referent spits us out, as it becomes our only way back to safety.
The Camera
Daniel Weinstock received probably just one gift from his stern Polish grandfather. A photographic camera. This object was going to transform his life. In spite of his grandfather’s opposition, Mr. Weinstock studied Theatre at the University of Mexico. He was one of the few selected actors graduating from the selective Centro Universitario de Teatro, UNAM. Soon after graduating he spent one year traveling and of course taking pictures. His early career as an actor was brief, albeit intense. But he soon abandoned it and took off as a theatre photographer in Mexico City. His work in the artistically complex venues of Mexico’s experimental theatre and his own experience as a professional actor, will greatly influence his style. This successful beginning sent Mr. Weinstock in search of a formal education as a photographer.
New York City - Teachers and Influences
Daniel Weinstock studied photography at Parsons School of Design in Los Angeles, CA. He soon moved to NYC where he studied Photojournalism at the International Center of Photography. It was there, in the unsanitized New York of the early 90s, where his photography started to take a dark turn. At the ICP where he learned to transform the image in a manifest of anger and social distrust and to empower his subjects with an unapologetic sense of uniqueness and defiance. (Empowered by great teachers such as the photographer Mary Ellen Mark.) In NYC, he discovered the work of Diane Arbus and quickly adopted her experimental approach to portrait and submerged himself in the psychological complexity of her legacy. Within months of finishing his studies at the ICP, he spent 4 long years photographing Mexico's most notorious asylums. What he found there was going to change his life and his art forever.
The Asylums
The very personal encounter he had with mental disorders, abandonment and abuse and the unforgivable indifference of the Mexican institutions, not only brought to our attention the horrendous reality of those interned, but by unrelentedly documenting it with hundreds of images in the span of those long 4 year, this devastating yet necessary commitment, will open a deep wound in Mr. Weinstock's psyche as well, wound that he has been unwilling to recover from. To this day, his work is and will be marked by these human transgressions and his determination to defy sanity.
Diane Arbus-Marginal Worlds
It is however, at this point when he finds himself the closest to his admired photographer: Miss Diane Arbus. He starts experimenting with faces and people who are living in the marginal world. Photographing garbage dumps in Mexico City, conferring its inhabitants a moment of dignity, as they are portrayed as icons of poverty and decay. Visiting whore houses in remote Mexican villages, exploring the hidden sexuality of its habitants and opening up the shades of century old taboos on homosexuality and fetishes.
Joel Peter Witkin
As an accomplished actor Mr. Weinstock's has also explored scenery composition. Some of his greatest photographs are staged and its subjects are professional models and actors, all friends of Mr. Weinstock. One of his favorite models said in one of Mr. Weinstocks talks ‘He goes first where he wants you to go’. She was referring to Mr. Weinstock’s willingness to set foot inside the images he takes, not as a spectator, but as an actor, before he asks anybody, including us to go there. This shows the great influence that Joel Peter Witkin has had on his work. Where reality impersonates fiction and from that point it has no way back to where it came from.
Ireland
In 2012 yet a new turning point for Mr. Weinstock's aesthetics. He had years of experimenting with negative manipulation and paint on photographic paper. With the help of a Mexican gallerist named Octavio Aguilar. Mr. Weinstock has his first solo exhibit in Europe at the Mexican Cultural Mission in Ireland. The show was very successful and opened the door for a Residence in one of the most remote areas of Ireland. Where his photographs of nature are breathtaking. This by no means has tamed Mr. Weinstock self-explanatory work. It has if any increased his anxiety of a long after thought: life is too short to photograph it whole.
Beyond Masochism
Because of the difficult subjects that Mr. Weinstock chooses to photograph one could think of masochism as a necessary exercise. But we must not forget that Mr. Weinstock's images, even the rawest ones, real or fiction, are just the reminder that there is another side of our comfortable lives, hidden in plain sight, inside or outside of us. But if some of these revelations are hard to take. The beautiful manipulated landscapes and oneiric pictures, with its recurrent almost Shakespearean themes balance Mr. Weinstocks work, making him one of the best Mexican artists of our times.
We hope you enjoyed Mr. Weinstock's photos. All the images shown here are digitally available for sale and selected ones on print. Please contact Mr. Weinstock directly through this web site.
Throughout the years Mr. Weinstock has offered innumerable workshops and talks. If you are interested in hosting him, please contact him directly through this web site.
Truly yours,
Daniel Weinstock and Friends.
Copy written by Irma Bello
Those Images
Throughout his career Daniel Weinstock has tested the boundaries between pain and art. Conferring to human pain an artistic quality that surreptitiously engages the viewer in social and psychological analysis. Dissecting his images is not simple. Once they had entangled us in a web that is a mix of pain and beauty, instinctively reacting to them seems to be the only sane option. A concept that since the primitive to medieval religious art, has turned suffering into social and religious icons. Since his early works, Daniel Weinstock's photography invites us to suffer, while the color or juxtaposition of images, techniques all favored by Mr. Weinstock, helps us to secretly enjoy the images, guided by the serenity of the hand behind the lens. Once inside the image, its morbid referent spits us out, as it becomes our only way back to safety.
The Camera
Daniel Weinstock received probably just one gift from his stern Polish grandfather. A photographic camera. This object was going to transform his life. In spite of his grandfather’s opposition, Mr. Weinstock studied Theatre at the University of Mexico. He was one of the few selected actors graduating from the selective Centro Universitario de Teatro, UNAM. Soon after graduating he spent one year traveling and of course taking pictures. His early career as an actor was brief, albeit intense. But he soon abandoned it and took off as a theatre photographer in Mexico City. His work in the artistically complex venues of Mexico’s experimental theatre and his own experience as a professional actor, will greatly influence his style. This successful beginning sent Mr. Weinstock in search of a formal education as a photographer.
New York City - Teachers and Influences
Daniel Weinstock studied photography at Parsons School of Design in Los Angeles, CA. He soon moved to NYC where he studied Photojournalism at the International Center of Photography. It was there, in the unsanitized New York of the early 90s, where his photography started to take a dark turn. At the ICP where he learned to transform the image in a manifest of anger and social distrust and to empower his subjects with an unapologetic sense of uniqueness and defiance. (Empowered by great teachers such as the photographer Mary Ellen Mark.) In NYC, he discovered the work of Diane Arbus and quickly adopted her experimental approach to portrait and submerged himself in the psychological complexity of her legacy. Within months of finishing his studies at the ICP, he spent 4 long years photographing Mexico's most notorious asylums. What he found there was going to change his life and his art forever.
The Asylums
The very personal encounter he had with mental disorders, abandonment and abuse and the unforgivable indifference of the Mexican institutions, not only brought to our attention the horrendous reality of those interned, but by unrelentedly documenting it with hundreds of images in the span of those long 4 year, this devastating yet necessary commitment, will open a deep wound in Mr. Weinstock's psyche as well, wound that he has been unwilling to recover from. To this day, his work is and will be marked by these human transgressions and his determination to defy sanity.
Diane Arbus-Marginal Worlds
It is however, at this point when he finds himself the closest to his admired photographer: Miss Diane Arbus. He starts experimenting with faces and people who are living in the marginal world. Photographing garbage dumps in Mexico City, conferring its inhabitants a moment of dignity, as they are portrayed as icons of poverty and decay. Visiting whore houses in remote Mexican villages, exploring the hidden sexuality of its habitants and opening up the shades of century old taboos on homosexuality and fetishes.
Joel Peter Witkin
As an accomplished actor Mr. Weinstock's has also explored scenery composition. Some of his greatest photographs are staged and its subjects are professional models and actors, all friends of Mr. Weinstock. One of his favorite models said in one of Mr. Weinstocks talks ‘He goes first where he wants you to go’. She was referring to Mr. Weinstock’s willingness to set foot inside the images he takes, not as a spectator, but as an actor, before he asks anybody, including us to go there. This shows the great influence that Joel Peter Witkin has had on his work. Where reality impersonates fiction and from that point it has no way back to where it came from.
Ireland
In 2012 yet a new turning point for Mr. Weinstock's aesthetics. He had years of experimenting with negative manipulation and paint on photographic paper. With the help of a Mexican gallerist named Octavio Aguilar. Mr. Weinstock has his first solo exhibit in Europe at the Mexican Cultural Mission in Ireland. The show was very successful and opened the door for a Residence in one of the most remote areas of Ireland. Where his photographs of nature are breathtaking. This by no means has tamed Mr. Weinstock self-explanatory work. It has if any increased his anxiety of a long after thought: life is too short to photograph it whole.
Beyond Masochism
Because of the difficult subjects that Mr. Weinstock chooses to photograph one could think of masochism as a necessary exercise. But we must not forget that Mr. Weinstock's images, even the rawest ones, real or fiction, are just the reminder that there is another side of our comfortable lives, hidden in plain sight, inside or outside of us. But if some of these revelations are hard to take. The beautiful manipulated landscapes and oneiric pictures, with its recurrent almost Shakespearean themes balance Mr. Weinstocks work, making him one of the best Mexican artists of our times.
We hope you enjoyed Mr. Weinstock's photos. All the images shown here are digitally available for sale and selected ones on print. Please contact Mr. Weinstock directly through this web site.
Throughout the years Mr. Weinstock has offered innumerable workshops and talks. If you are interested in hosting him, please contact him directly through this web site.
Truly yours,
Daniel Weinstock and Friends.
Copy written by Irma Bello
