Luis Molina Pantin, Luis
b. 1969, Venezuela
Venezuelan photographer, born 1969, active in the United States
Photographer Luis Molina-Pantin considers himself “essentially an urban archaeologist.” He refers to his practice of combing through his surroundings and creating series featuring objects, people, or spaces united by a common theme or subject. In his work, Molina-Pantin has assembled photographs of Manhattan gallery offices, structures built with drug money, cruise ships, international hotel chains, wax museum art figures, and images of landscapes printed on objects. He likens his practice of hunting and photographing to the act of collecting, saying that “the photograph calms my urge to possess something that I can’t.” Molina-Pantin has been lauded for subverting photography’s conventions of portraiture, landscape, and documentary in a wry and humorous way.