Not all of us grew up in the time of El Santo, not even in his country, and yet we are able to (almost) recognize his mask, or at least, imagine great stories by hearing his name.
Like any foreigner who boarded an airplane to Mexico City, I had two things in mind: to have tacos and to visit a ring.
After doing the first, I came to the wrestling colossus with a well-defined idea of how to use my camera: by then, my interest was to explore the ways in which the public experienced La Arena Mexico, that place far from their private space -which, like others- inhabited only temporarily and in which, nevertheless, its transit took root and became its own even if provisionally. Thus, my foreign gaze, initially, sought for the audience.
I already knew the photographic work that Lourdes Gobret Argüelles had done on the seats full of fans, as well as through the ropes of the ring and under the roofs of the homes of those who met hand-to-hand on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. I had also read a couple of articles, such as the one in which Víctor Manuel López G., argued the show as catharsis, and as a psychic, compensatory, symbolic and therapeutic victory for the collective’s cultural trauma, updated in this theatrical simulation.
My look, as I said, initially sought for the audience, but after some shots it turned to the fight that had so many people either laughing or cursing or applauding. Then I remembered something that one of my professors had told me that week, about how we people get carried away by visual-sound-sensorial stimuli; also came to my mind a phrase that, if I remember correctly, was attributed to Gobret herself, in the book “Espectacular de lucha libre” (which I had seen a few days ago) and in which she said that “art has to serve [also] to have fun.”
