Ana de la Cueva, Marcos Carlos, 2009, Sculptural print, 7.5 x 5.3 x 1.2 inches. El Paquete, a solo exhibition by the New York based, Mexican artist Ana de la Cue va. Nov 2009. El Paquete is a journey into de la Cueva’s past that explores male and female sexuality through the lens of her life. In her anthropological exploration, the artist has tracked down ex-lovers, male friends, and men in her family and photographed them in their underwear. The photographs are printed on boxes identical to those on underwear packaging, containing the men’s intimate drawers worn at the moment of confrontation. As a new and unique form of portraiture, El Paquete is a wry commentary on things disposable and simultaneously intimate. De la Cueva appropriates the format of the product’s description found on commercial underwear boxesto give us small hints about the men and their relationship to her. She sends a series of questions to each man inquiring on their fetishes, life mottos, and favorite positions (“postura” in her native Spanish can mean “position,” as in one’s mantra in life, or doubly, his preferred sexual position). Ana de la Cueva, who has previously used embroidery, painting, collage, and video in her work to explore identity, continues this theme in El Paquete. De la Cueva’s work is a subtle and subversive critique on the nature of relationships set against the backdrop of our consumer society.