Leica Gallery Madrid exhibits until the 24 of May The Mexicans by Bernardo Aja.

Bernardo Aja has travelled the country in search of the specific characteristics that define the rich variety of the fiesta brava bullfighting in Mexico, especially in cities known for their baroque architecture of Spanish origin or their colonial-era old quarters. However, despite the Spanish influence, bullfighting has acquired its own characteristics. Bullfighting in Mexico is experienced in a different way.

What is the photographer looking for in front of the bull? To reveal the psychological character of his subject. The same as the bullfighter seeks in front of the bull: to reveal the psychological character of the animal to be able to anticipate his reactions, his manias, his philias or phobias... His life depends on it.

As for the matadors, this series of photographs does not show "the figures of bullfighting". Here we see modest bullfighters who will most probably never get to wear the bullfighter’s costume in luxurious hotels; bullfighters who will never step on the carpet; bullfighters who put their lives on the line in fascinating bullrings such as the Petatera, built by the people following ancient techniques from ancestral indigenous architecture. Does this type of construction represent an anachronism in the 21st century? It certainly does.

Bernardo Aja's photographs bear witness to rites and customs that go back a long way. Today, the ancestral bullfighting ceremony continues to be a socio-cultural fact of undeniable roots in the traditions of our respective peoples, fundamentally because through bullfighting they manage to express profound traits of their way of being.

Some of the photographs in this exhibition were taken with a Leica M6 camera.