Alejandro S. Garrido
Madrid 1986

Alejandro S. Garrido uses photography as a social document, developing it in projects that might well class him as what Hal Foster – writing at the end of the twentieth century – called 'the artist as ethnologist'. The initial basis for analysis in each of his series is the artist’s residence in a particular place, city or context.

Cabanyal. 2011 combines two projects undertaken in the city of Valencia (specifically, in El Cabanyal/El Canyamelar and El Grau). They depict two separate actions, operating as antagonistic forces: the destruction and abandonment of Valencia's old sea town and the staging of the Formula 1 Grand Prix. Garrido first moved to Valencia in 2012 on a scholarship from the Universitat Politècnica de València, after graduating in Art at the Complutense University in Madrid.

After attending Antoni Muntadas's workshop on project methodology at MUSAC in León, Garrido first set foot in one of the run-down neighbourhoods derogatorily known as 'Corea' (Korea). Out of that experience arose his most ambitious project to date: Corea. Una historia paralela [Korea. A Parallel History] (2017), which depicts life in six such districts in cities around Spain. The resulting publication, published by Flâneur in 2018, was selected as one of the best self-published books at the 2018 PHotoESPAÑA festival. The project was also nominated for the International Prize for Architecture and Landscape Photography awarded by the Gabriele Basilico foundation in Milan.

City of London (2018-2019) ‘explores the intersection between the global circulation of financial capital, urban development and the housing crisis in London’, where Garrido currently lives. The pictures are not merely representations of a place; they act as 'thinking elements' about a small corner of the planet with a decisive importance in the global socio-economic and political chessboard. The series was first presented on the MPA Gallery stand at the ARCO 2019 fair, and in 2020 it was included in 'Ciudad y progreso' [City and Progress], a solo exhibition at the Patio Herreriano Museum of Spanish Contemporary Art in Valladolid.

Álvaro de los Ángeles