Photographer Nelson Garrido, Who Embraced an “Aesthetics of the Ugly,” Dies at 73

Obituary

The Venezuelan photographer interrogated energy, faith, violence, and eroticism over a six-decade-long follow that confronted relentless censorship from church and state authorities.

Venezuelan artist Nelson Garrido, who made pictures a follow of absolute freedom, died on August 20, 2026, days earlier than his 74th birthday. The information of his demise was confirmed by Gala Garrido, his daughter.  

Born in Caracas on August 24, 1952, Garrido spent his youth in France, Italy, and Chile, raised by his father, a painter and Army General within the diplomatic corps. At 14 in Paris, he labored for the kinetic artwork pioneer Carlos Cruz-Diez; at 16 in Chile, Garrido befriended and photographed poet Nicanor Parra, taking footage that turned his first revealed images.

Upon returning to Venezuela, Garrido moved to a shantytown in Caracas and staged theater with employee communities for César Rengifo and created set designs for performs by José Ignacio Cabrujas and movies by Román Chalbaud. These theatrical and group immersions formed his utopian anarchism and knowledgeable his general inventive follow.

Drawing on set design reliquaries, crucifixions, and the work of Old Masters equivalent to Hieronymus Bosch and Francisco Goya, Garrido interrogated energy, faith, violence, eroticism, and the “aesthetics of the ugly.” In his photograph sequence La nave de los locos (1999), he forged members of a neighborhood fishing group aboard a vessel, allegorizing a nation adrift. Central to his iconography was the pig, which he used as a stand-in for Catholic sacred figures and politicians. His 1993 {photograph} “La crucifixión del cochino levitando” (1993), depicting a crucified pig, sparked outrage throughout Venezuela. Priests protested and declared him persona non grata.