Retinue: A Multi-Sensory Erotic Fashion Experience by Angel Alcala @ Sin City Gallery
For this groundbreaking exhibition, Alcalá has created a cinematic experience that titillates, enthralls, and creates a sense of sensually charged mystery. Alcalá’s complex orchestrations are always a delight to witness. Performers are minimally made up in Modernist-inspired makeup and clothing is transformed into sculpture, imbued with a mystical sense of otherness, set in a beautiful and strange environment. In addition to this short film, the gallery will feature a selection of the amazing costumery for which the artist has become renowned, in addition to other objects inspired by or utilized in the film.
The debut of Retinue is a masterly fashioning of an opulent and captivating production, shot with the RED Epic Dragon, a camera used exclusively by elite industry professionals, delivering ultra-high-definition visuals. The short film combines imagery of magic, alchemy, homoeroticism, mythology, and radically conceived textile design. While the artist alludes to various historical visual forms in Retinue, his work moves beyond static references, injecting each performance with heavy complex symbolism as well as denseness and lushness. In his engrossing work, Alcalá casts the evocative characters of Greco-Roman mythology as warring protagonists, and follows deities and the path of their desires for both divine and earthly beings.
Committed to experimentation and constant exploration, Alcalá’s pieces are at the intersection of art and fashion. There is a richness and denseness to Alcalá’s work that appeals to the opulence reflecting the glamour of Vegas, and also the considerable artistic tradition and talent of his native Mexico. He immigrated to the United States as a child from Tepatitlán De Morelos, Jalisco. Inspired at a very young age by the artist and teacher Shannon Tolhurst, Alcalá has dedicated his creative life to constant innovation. The artist is trained in studio art and digital media, and graduated from the Las Vegas Academy of the Arts. He is the recipient of various awards and honors including Gold and Silver Key Awards from the 2010 Scholastics Arts & Writing Awards, Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, and is a 2012 RAWards Las Vegas Performance Art Finalist.
Alcalá is a tour de force, constantly engaged in producing films, events, collaborations, avant-garde fashion designs, and projects that all follow an imaginative exploration of performance, fashion, beauty, and gender. Moreover, in addition to the impressive roster of ornately beautiful fashion-inspired films, installations, and performances he has worked closely with fellow designers and artists such as Jennifer Henry of FLOCKFLOCKFLOCK, and JK Russ, as well as contributing to the charity event ARTrageous by The LGBTQ Center of Southern Nevada, and Circus Couture, an annual event conceived by Cirque du Soleil performer Erica Linz to raise funds for the Children’s Specialty Center of Southern Nevada. It is with great pleasure that Sin City Gallery premieres the sensory experience of the pioneering work of this young artist, Angel Alcalá.
This project was produced in collaboration with Shane O'Neal, Photographer, Derrick Barry, DIVAS Las Vegas, Nick San Pedro, Visual Artist, Mackenzie Claude, Model, and John Stalling, Model. There will be an Artist Talk on January 20 at 7:00 PM at Sin City Gallery, located inside The Arts Factory. www.sincitygallery.com.
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