Fotos Maras ~ Mexico City

Spanish photographer Isabel Muñoz went to document the Maras of El Salvador. An exhibit of her work was up at Centro Cultural del Mexico Contemporaneo in the Centro Historico behind the Templo Santo Domingo until the end of December. We caught it on December 31.

The show featured a series of arresting large-scale portraits of Maras, male and female (some pregnant), highlighting the extreme tattooing that distinguishes soldiers in the multinational gang. Muñoz also shot many Maras in their domestic spaces -- which is to say, in prison -- offering a look at their visual surroundings: layers of murals on ceilings and walls depicting demons and Satan, clowns, naked women, Death, and tombstones for their departed homies.