Faces of War = The Faces of War

The Argentine photographer Alejandro Balaguer arrived at the Peruvian weekly magazine Caretas, thinking it would only be for a season. But the magazine assigned him commissions that took him deep into the Andes and the jungle, allowing him to absorb and document a world of age-old dramas and historical stirrings. In short, what shaped Balaguer's vision was not only the violent streets of Lima and its political and social whirlwind, but also the millennial country of ethnic groups lost in the centuries that emerge from Ayacucho in the peasant rondas, appear among the coca fields of Huallaga and behind the weapons of Huancayo and in the migrations of refugees. Epic and compassionate are Balaguer's photographs. Faces of peasants tanned like leather. Gaunt women ronderas armed with lances. Soldiers and devout women. Everything has been recorded with sensitivity and respect, through the lens of this new indigenous observer that is Alejandro Balaguer. (Excerpt from presentation).