Alvaro Sánchez – A Punk-Rock Ethos

To hear the full interview with Alvaro Sánchez, click the media box below.

“I want the person who sees my work to experience something similar to the sensation that you get when you listen to a punk song at full volume.”

– Alvaro Sánchez

I’d read that quote from Alvaro Sánchez prior to our interview at the Sophos Bookstore café in Guatemala City, and it informed much of our ensuing conversation about his art, the world and the need to — more than occasionally — kick people lovingly in the head to wake them up. The attitude  inherent in the quote resonated with me immediately. I’m a fifty-year-old punk-rock kid from the States. I grew up on the Sex Pistols, the Ramones, Blotto and the Dead Kennedys. In the wake of the Trump election a few weeks back, I put the DKs anthem “Nazi Punks, Fuck OFF!” on repeat for a few days straight as I stormed around town spoiling for a political fight. This magazine, while glossy and gorgeous, has the do-it-yourself mentality and willingness to offend bourgeois sensibilities that have electrified punk culture for the past forty years and when I married the tightly bound, intensely intellectual and unflinchingly visceral work of Alvaro Sánchez with his words, I knew I’d found a true brother of the mosh pit in my adoptive home.

I cannot tell you, via the printed word, how good that feels. If you want to know, meet the artist and me in a darkened bar with the amplifiers turned up to eleven sometime. Or, perhaps, give a listen to our full interview while perusing Alvaro’s work.

Dig these pages and images, coupled with some quotes from our longer conversation. God, I love this guy’s work.