Questioning our position as spectators, a shoeless girl looks straight at the camera’s lens while she leans tenderly on a Pepsi fridge; the popular North American soft drink which had already reached every corner of the world by 1970. Advertising, propaganda, and cult images coexist and dialogue with Gasparini’s photographs which sometimes are charged with dramaticism, others with a sense of humor, and occasionally lie in the middle.

Between 1970 and 1972 Gasparini travelled through Latin America with the mission of taking photographs of the most interesting pre-Columbian, colonial, and modern constructions. During his walks through Lima, La Paz, and Quito he would carry three cameras: a medium format camera to capture architecture—in following with the commission—, and two 35 millimeter cameras to portray the B-side of that journey. The images he took in parallel would become Para verte mejor, América Latina [The Better to See You, Latin America], published in 1972, with texts by Edmundo Desnoes and designed by Umberto Peña. The publication was considered by Martin Parr and Gerry Badger one of the best photobooks of the 20^th century. Among the socialist inspired incendiary slogans one encounters the symbolic universe of a continent being debated between two political models in which leaders play an equally important role as do anonymous citizens.