Adál Maldonado

The photographer Adál Maldonado (better known as ADÁL) is a Nuyorican (Puerto Rican in New York) who explores the relationship between conceptual art and migrant identity in humorous images where the real and the surreal go hand in hand. A member of the Nuyorican poetry movement, ADÁL explores the relationship between language and image, often creating plays on words in English, Spanish and Spanglish. In this self-portrait, ADÁL appears wearing a dinner jacket with a bunch of bananas on his head, as if it were a hat or headgear. The eyes in this masculinised version of Carmen Miranda are empty and brooding and, instead of inviting the viewer to enjoy the fruit’s sensuality, it reminds them of the wrongs caused by the banana trade.