ART DISTRICT Gallery is proud to host the photo exhibition of the Colombian American photographer Alejandro Arango titled “KERATINISM” from September 10th until September 20th, curated by Iraqi Canadian artist Mahmoud Obaidi.

After nearly twenty years in the commercial and fashion photography business, and being an anthropologist by training, Alejandro Arango looked for a way to subvert the fashion ‘beauty’ codes and cliches from within, by putting into play model hair and hairstyle, and using it against the very industry and diverse cultures it has been hostage to; be it those cultures flaunting it, or those going out of their way to hide it. The keratin that makes up the hair in humans, also makes the rhinoceros horn, and throughout the ages that fabled animal stoked the imagination of the ‘civilized world’ by its exoticism and elusiveness. Painted by Raphael, and drawn by Durer from a mere description, the printing process made the artist’s fame throughout Europe, art history, and literature, and from novelty became a symbol of conformism and the lack of free thought, and in Ionesco’s play.

In Keratinism, Arango hijacks the hair and hairstyles to a Lack the very essence of what makes the mendacity of contemporary civilization, be it Western or not.