The work of Paz Errázuriz demonstrates her determination to portray the realities that are rarely made visible to society as a whole for political, economic, and moral reasons. Thus, throughout her career, she has photographed the microcosms of traveling circuses, prostitution, and the interiors of psychiatric institutions. The photographer approaches these realities in a direct but respectful way, like an anthropologist with the sensibility of a poet. Along with her interest in making these worlds visible, the series Tango (De a dos) [Tango (For Two)] captures many of Errázuriz’s other preferred motifs: the intimacy of bodies and the sensuality of their gestures, the enactment of marginalized social practices, and instances that generally challenge the dominant moral order.

Club Buenos Aires, Santiago focuses on the sensual nature of dance and the communion of dancing couples. Errázuriz disregards the subjects’ gazes and only shows the man’s back upon which—strikingly, like a claw—his dance partner places her hand. In photographs such as this one, the series speaks of intimate body language between adults that, amid the darkness of the dance hall, contradict the moral discourse of the dictatorship in their own way.