There are images that survive time because they were never a trend. They were a way of looking at the world

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RUVร‰N AFANADOR

To talk about Ruvรฉn Afanador is to talk about Colombia and about his role as a creative, as an artist who carries the country within his way of working. He has spent over forty years building his own visual language. In his photographs, documentation disappears: what remains is an interpretation of the body, light, and emotion. He is most likely one of the Latin American photographers who has left the deepest mark on the last four decades.

Ruvรฉn was born in Bucaramanga, the city of parks, set on a high plateau above the Rรญo de Oro and surrounded by majestic mountains. An enchanted world that has left a deep imprint on his work. He studied art abroad and began his career as a photographer in Milan. He ended up in New York, where he built an international career with publications like Vogue, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, The Hollywood Reporter, and The New York Times.

Artists, musicians, actors, and world leaders have all passed in front of his camera, but his work never depended on the names he photographed. It depends on something else: the ability to reveal what remains hidden. Alongside this, he has built an artistic body of work gathered in books and exhibitions such as Torero, Sombra, รngel Gitano, Mil Besos, and Hijas del Agua. Among them, AFANADOR stands out โ€” a singular project created together with the National Ballet of Spain: a stage piece born from the imagery of his books รngel Gitano and Mil Besos, whose name evokes an endless search. These are projects that consolidate a deeply personal outlook on identity, beauty, and what it means to represent someone. During the early conversations about the project, Ruvรฉn told us that Chevignon sounded familiar to him, like a word that was already part of his memory. And that part of that memory was tied to a jacket.

@ruvenafanador

There are images that survive time because they were never a trend. They were a way of looking at the world.

Founded in Paris in 1979, Chevignon became a global reference point during the nineties. Denim, leather, and freedom transformed into symbols of a generation.

Today, that universe finds a new interpretation through the eyes of Ruvรฉn Afanador. With his work, The Object of My Affection, this project explores what remains suspended between desire and memory; the images, objects, and gestures we keep searching for because they still hold something true.

90's Revival is not an expression of nostalgia. It is a conversation between past and present. A reunion with those objects that continue to accompany us because they were made to last, but above all, because they keep finding new ways of being inhabited.

There are images that survive time because they were never a trend. They were a way of looking at the world.

Founded in Paris in 1979, Chevignon became a global reference point during the nineties. Denim, leather, and freedom transformed into symbols of a generation.

Today, that universe finds a new interpretation through the eyes of Ruvรฉn Afanador. With his work, The Object of My Affection, this project explores what remains suspended between desire and memory; the images, objects, and gestures we keep searching for because they still hold something true.

90's Revival is not an expression of nostalgia. It is a conversation between past and present. A reunion with those objects that continue to accompany us because they were made to last, but above all, because they keep finding new ways of being inhabited.

The Art Piece


One of the biggest challenges of this project was the casting. It wasn't simply about bringing people together, but about building a beauty that only existed in Ruvรฉn Afanador's imagination. Bringing together forty-eight people to take part in a work that didn't yet have a visible form meant asking them an act of faith: to believe in an idea before being able to see it.

The criterion was never to choose the greatest talent or to answer to an ideal of beauty. The goal was to find people capable of transcending time. People whose essence would remain intact beyond any trend or era, so that in ten or twenty years, these photographs would still feel as contemporary as the day they were created.

Now that the project is here, there's only one thing left to do: thank them. Each person brought something impossible to manufacture or direct: a presence, a unique way of inhabiting the jacket, a gesture that belongs only to the person embodying it. All of them made it possible for an imagined idea to become a shared work.


Marly Velรกsquez, Jesรบs Enrique, Camila Calle, Catalina Garcรญa, Alejandro Cuadros, Juanadel Rรญo, Hugo Wext, Juan Guilera, Sebastiรกn Osorio, Ana Paulina Maestre, EmilianaValencia, Silvana Valencia, Felipe Lozano, Andrรฉs Mosquera, Marรญa del Mar Botero,Tarek Halaby, Camilo Gaviria, Mรณnica Hernรกndez, Santiago Arenas, Juanita รlvarez,Sofรญa Gรณmez, Viรฑa Machado, Cรฉsar Matute, Laura Archbold, Hรฉctor Aguinagalde, PilarVillamizar, Johan Sebastiรกn Sena, Amelia Ochoa, Elisa Ochoa, Santiago Catรณlico, PaolaCazarรกn, Lucy Vives, Josรฉ Restrepo, Laura Barjum, Natalia Reyes, Carolina Guerra,Vicente Jimรฉnez Gรณmez, รngela Cano, Felipe Bedoya, Camila Morales Bermรบdez, Adriano,Nick Estepa, Alejandro Cardona, Anamarรญa Galรกn de Brigard, Sofรญa Vera, Edgomez, Llane,Hansel Castro.

There are images that survive time because they were never a trend. They were a way of looking at the world

There are images that survive time because they were never a trend. They were a way of looking at the world

DISCOVER THE COLLECTION โ†’

EXPLORE THE COLLECTION

DISCOVER THE COLLECTION