
Juan Manuel
Juan Manuel Castro Prieto

biography

Spanish photographer, member of Agence VU’ and represented by Galerie VU’, lives in Madrid (Spain).
A scientist by training and a lover of photography, Juan Manuel Castro Prieto has managed to combine his two passions to become one of the most aware, demanding and subtle photographers in Europe.
After resurrecting the work of thirties portrait photographer, Martin Chambi, by creating prints from glass plates in Cuzco, Prieto developed a passion for Peru. Ten years later, he crossed the country on a “journey to the sun,” where he finely and artistically portrayed his tenderness for the people, the beauty of the landscape, his curiosity for an often unspoiled culture, and the poverty accompanying this condition.
He then grouped together a collection of strange 20-year-old images he had taken of bare landscapes and still lives to explore photography’s limits and better understand light. The resulting effect was a tension between fiction and representation.
His work « Extraños » he published two years later is dominated by four main themes : sex, death, childhood and intimacy. These oneiric black and white pictures show a singular, ambiguous and mysterious world.
Today he mostly works with colour by using the highly personal tonality of Ethiopia and India to create visions that are both mental and based upon a troubling realism, a form of travel, between dream and materiality, like on the delicacy of impossible shades.
Series


Tangiers, at the crossroads of Europe and Africa

Peru, 2020

Pachama, the Miners of Bolivia, 2019

Facing Ethiopia’s trees, 2017

Solovki, 2016

Cespedosa, 1977-2015

Sète #11, 2011

Peru, 2009

Musée d’Orsay, 2006

Ethiopia, 2001-2006

Vanuatu, Esperando al cargo, 2005

Cuenca en la mirada, 2003-2005

La Seda Rota, 2005

Extraños, 1984-2004/03

Perú, viaje al sol, 1990-2000

Gabinete de curiosidades, 2022

Tangiers, at the crossroads of Europe and Africa

Peru, 2020

Pachama, the Miners of Bolivia, 2019

Facing Ethiopia’s trees, 2017

Solovki, 2016

Cespedosa, 1977-2015

Sète #11, 2011

Peru, 2009

Musée d’Orsay, 2006

Ethiopia, 2001-2006

Vanuatu, Esperando al cargo, 2005

Cuenca en la mirada, 2003-2005

La Seda Rota, 2005

Extraños, 1984-2004/03

Perú, viaje al sol, 1990-2000

Gabinete de curiosidades, 2022

Tangiers, at the crossroads of Europe and Africa

Peru, 2020

Pachama, the Miners of Bolivia, 2019

Facing Ethiopia’s trees, 2017

Solovki, 2016

Cespedosa, 1977-2015

Sète #11, 2011

Peru, 2009

Musée d’Orsay, 2006

Ethiopia, 2001-2006

Vanuatu, Esperando al cargo, 2005

Cuenca en la mirada, 2003-2005

La Seda Rota, 2005

Extraños, 1984-2004/03

Perú, viaje al sol, 1990-2000
Interviews
The photographer Juan Manuel Castro Prieto is exhibited in Pau
France 3 Aquitaine
—
2018
The Spanish photographer Juan Manuel Castro Prieto exhibits his photographs of Ethiopia and Peru at the Parvis of Pau. A long-term project based on the view camera.
Juan Manuel Castro Prieto at the PICA Photo Espana
PICA Photo Espana
—
2016
Conference given by Juan Manuel Castro Prieto at the PICA Photo Espana.
South America/ Caribbean : Juan Manuel Castro Prieto
France Culture
—
2012
“Trained as a scientist, Juan Manuel Castro Prieto first became known for his demanding and subtle mastery of photographic printing: a meticulous and patient work”.
video
Solovki, 2019
—
The imposing walls of the Solovetski monastery stand on the Solovki islands, in the calm waters of the White Sea in northwest Russia. Founded in the 15th century on the eponymous islands, it hosted during the Soviet period one of the most sadly known gulags of the USSR. “Being sent to Solovetski” has become a Russian expression.
Juan Manuel Castro Prieto and Rafael Trapiello explored this territory in search of a relationship between hell and paradise. Using a narrative close to poetry, all their images evoke the strange tension that exists between the spirituality and the beauty of the environment.
Exhibitions
Juan Manuel Castro Prieto
–
Galerie VU’, 75009 Paris
–
From April 1st to May 7, 2022
Portugal, Renaître de ses cendres
–
Festival Photo La Gacilly, France
–
From the 1st of June to the 30th of September 2019
Solovki
–
Centro de Arte Alcobendas, Madrid, Espagne
–
From the 22th of May to the 24th of August 2019
Books

Sucedió entre dos párpados

Solovki

Cespedosa

Sète#11

Martín Chambí Perú Castro Prieto

Etiopia

PHotobolsillo

La seda rota

Esperando al cargo

Cuenca en la mirada

Extranos

Pérou, chemins perdus

Sucedió entre dos párpados

Solovki

Cespedosa

Sète#11

Martín Chambí Perú Castro Prieto

Etiopia

PHotobolsillo

La seda rota

Esperando al cargo

Cuenca en la mirada

Extranos

Pérou, chemins perdus

Sucedió entre dos párpados

Solovki

Cespedosa

Sète#11

Martín Chambí Perú Castro Prieto

Etiopia

PHotobolsillo

La seda rota

Esperando al cargo

Cuenca en la mirada

Extranos

Pérou, chemins perdus
AWARDS

Prize National of Photography
Spain
For his whole photographic career
2015

Photography Prize of the Comunidad de Madrid
Spain
For his whole photographic career
2003

Prize Bartolomé Ros – PHotoEspana
Spain
For his whole photographic career
2002

Prize Cesar Vallejo
Spain
For his work on Peru
2001