Dino Dinco – photographer – Brief Article
Michael Matson
Vividly captures Latino men, with a distinctive vision
The photography of Dino Dinco has made a splash lately in some of the Western world’s most visually influential publications, but it is the work commissioned nearly two years ago by the Los Angeles Latino bar Chico that’s making the biggest impression. Dinco’s intimate and seductive series of portraits of Latino men, both gay and straight, had to be put under plexiglass protectors after club patrons showered the work with lipstick kisses. But is Dinco, who’s white, exploiting a racial minority in these photos, as some critics have suggested? “The process of making photographs is inherently objectifying, whether you’re photographing a person or a houseplant,” says the openly gay artist, who’s working on Homeboy, a documentary about gay ex-gang members. “But I think it’s pretty clear from the work that I have a deep respect for my subjects.”
COPYRIGHT 2001 Liberation Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group
