Born in Mexico City in 1957, Armando Cristeto began his foray into photography as a self-taught photographer while earning a degree in General Medicine at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), highlighting his brother, Adolfo Patiño ‘Afolfotógrafo’, and Mexican-American photographer Louis Carlos Bernal as two of his great mentors.

Cristeto has exhibited his work since 1977, approaching photography from a documentary perspective and defining himself in axes such as socio-cultural life and Mexico’s urban environment, always with an accentuated gender perspective.

As a “gay and chilango photographer”, as he defines himself, his work is mostly dedicated to the conquest for the respect and rights of the LGTBQIA+ community in Mexico, seeking the reaffirmation of the identities of those photographed, urban characters considered outside the normative, highlighting his photographic records of the Pride March in Mexico since he experienced firsthand the beginning of the Homosexual Liberation movement in the country in 1978.

One of his most emblematic series “Apolo Urbano”, became a symbol of activism for sexual diversity, understanding the portrait as a praise to hedonism that vindicates homoeroticism through a look that glorifies the perfection of the human body.

His work also includes series on male nudity, bodybuilding and Mexico City nightlife, such as parties at the famous Mexican bar El Nueve. Some of his most influential series are “Apolo Urbano”, “Fauna Imperial Celeste”, “Las Noches del Reventón”, “Vaqueros Gay Mx” and “El condón”, with which he participated in the group exhibition Losing the Human Form at the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid in 2012-2013.

Along with his brother, he was the founder of the interdisciplinary art group Peyote y la Compañía, a collective created with the purpose of disseminating the work of emerging artists. He was also a member of the Group of Independent Photographers (GFI). Cristeto, as an active militant and pioneer in the fight against homophobia and the stigma of sexual orientation and identity, was a founding member of the Círculo Cultural Gay from 1986 to 2000.