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290713: CaixaForum Madrid Seducidos por el arte – Seduced by art. The past and present of photography
CaixaForum Madrid
Seducidos por el arte – Seduced by art. The past and present of photography
19.06.2013 to 15.09.2013
Night music
By Clementine Kügler
It's all about the influence of classical paintings by old masters on the pioneers of photography and contemporary photo artists. "Seduced by art – the past and present of photography" shows how photography dipped into the source of painting since its beginnings in the 30's of the 19th century and that it still does so today - not only in ironic form. Not astounding as a theory, but worth seeing as exhibition with the juxtaposition of the works of different epochs and techniques.
Following exhibitions in London and Barcelona, the co-production of London's National Gallery and the Cultural Foundation of the Savings Bank "La Caixa" is now shown in Madrid: the curator, Hope Kingsley, has collected 130 portraits, nudes, still-life’s and landscapes. A clear parallel is shown between Jeff Wall's large format light box, "The vandalized room" (1978/1987) with mattresses and piles of material and Frédéric Villet's earlier copy in oils (1844) of "Death of the Sardanapal" by Eugène Delacroix: aesthetically staged vandalism. In Sarah Jones' "Old art studio" (2008), all that remains, reduced down to the essence, is a grey mattress with a much-folded, draped mauve material. Often, it's still only single aspects that function as citations of the contemporaries.
Sometimes the first photographs are pure documentary reproductions, such as the sepia-coloured tulips at the end of the 1860's, sometimes clearly inspired by old masters' paintings: Roger Fenton's ornate fruit still life on albumin paper from 1860.
Beside a magnificent, dark still life by the Spanish master, Luis Meléndez from the late 18th century is Evelyn Hofer's (1922 to 2009) photo of a black vase and a plate of plastic fruit into which one wants to bite. This desire dissipates at Sam Tayler-Wood's DVD of a plate of rotting fruit (2001): "nature morte" in the true sense of the word.
As a premiere in Madrid: The Spanish photographer and national prizewinner, José Manuel Ballester, comes to grips with Francisco de Goya's historic "3 May 1808". The moving picture, which hangs in the Prado, shows the execution of Spanish rebels by the Napoleonic occupying forces in Madrid. Goya possibly witnessed the event but only put it on canvas in 1814. Two hundred years later, Ballester created a monumental photographic print on material on which all figures are digitally deleted. The shadowy picture of the city remains as the setting and the glowing, quadratic lantern as the highly symbolic allegory of the event.
CaixaForum Madrid
28014 Madrid, Paseo del Prado, 36
Tel: +34 902 223 040
http://www.lacaixa.es/obrasocial
Opening hours: Mon-Sun 10-20 hours
Mehr Texte von translated and summarized by: Liz Wollner-Grandville
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290713
CaixaForum Madrid
28014 Madrid, Paseo del Prado, 36
Tel: +34 902 223 040
http://www.lacaixa.es/obrasocial
Öffnungszeiten: Mo-So 10-20 h
CaixaForum Madrid
28014 Madrid, Paseo del Prado, 36
Tel: +34 902 223 040
http://www.lacaixa.es/obrasocial
Öffnungszeiten: Mo-So 10-20 h
