Tag: FUNDACIÓN MAPFRE

11
Dic

Hiroshi Sugimoto. Black Box

16 December 2016 – 8 March 2017

A notably intellectual artist, the work of Hiroshi Sugimoto (b. 1948, Tokyo) contains a highly meditated conceptual element that encourages the spectator towards philosophical reflection. The artist reinterprets some of the principal genres in the classic tradition of photography. Sugimoto is a master craftsman and has rejected digital technology in favour of traditional methods.

In the exhibition Hiroshi Sugimoto – Black Box, Foam presents an overview of the work of the Japanese artist. The exhibition offers a survey of his work through his major series: Theaters (1976-ongoing); Lightning Fields (2006-ongoing); Dioramas (1976-2012); Portraits (1994-1999); and Seascapes (1980-ongoing).

On display are a total of 34 large-format works, selected by guest curator Philip Larratt-Smith, that offer a survey of the artist’s last forty years of artistic activity. Given that some of the series are still ongoing, the exhibition also looks forward to future creations.

The images are characterised by great visual beauty and notable technical virtuosity, emphasised by his habitual use of large formats. Taken as a whole, Hiroshi Sugimoto’s work constitutes a profound meditation on the nature of perception, illusion, representation, life and death.

OPENING
The exhibition opens on Thursday 15 December 2016Continue Reading..

03
Mar

Hiroshi Sugimoto: Black Box

Curated by Philip Larratt-Smith

From February 19 through May 8, 2016

“I feel like a man from the stone age. I try to go back to the original roots of our mind, of our conscience, that we may have lost thousands of years ago, or maybe just fifty or a hundred years ago.” Hiroshi Sugimoto

From February 19, 2016, you can visit the exhibition at the Casa Garriga i Nogués in Barcelona, dedicated to the Japanese photographer, Hiroshi Sugimoto. The exhibition, under the title of Hiroshi Sugimoto. Black Box provides a journey through some of his most famous series and invites us to learn about the work that the artist is working on right now. This multidisciplinary artist, based in New York since the ’70s, works with sculptures, architecture, installation and photography, and is considered to be one of the most important international artists in the last field. The exhibition includes 39 large prints, showing the last forty years of the artist’s work.

Hiroshi Sugimoto has explored ideas of time, empiricism and metaphysics through a surreal and formalistic approach since the 1970s. A self-described “habitual self-interlocutor,” Sugimoto uses the camera as a bridge between abstract questions and the quiet, comical nature of modern everyday life. Whether formally photographing Madame Tussauds wax figures and the wildlife scenes at the American Museum of Natural History, or opening the lens of his eight-by-ten camera to capture a two-hour-long film in one exposure, he explores themes of consumerism, narrative and existence in rich and evocative imagery. This new project presents a survey of Sugimoto’s iconic work, from his calm seascapes to his more recent exploration of lightning fields and photogenic drawing. Created in conjunction with an upcoming exhibition at Fundación Mapfre in Spain, the survey includes an introduction and essay by writer and curator Philip Larratt-Smith, an interview with Sugimoto and text by the prominent Brazilian artist Iran do Espírito Santo.Continue Reading..

25
Set

Josef Koudelka. Uncertain Nationality

Fundación MAPFRE, Madrid
10 September – 29 November 2015

FUNDACIÓN MAPFRE presents the most complete retrospective exhibit up to this day dedicated to the Czech photographer of French nationality Josef Koudelka (b. 1934), member for the past forty years of Magnum Photos agency.

Engineer by profession, Koudelka became committed to the photographic medium in the middle of the sixties and became one of the most influential authors of his generation. Halfway between the artistic and documentary, Josef Koudelka is now a living legend. He has received prestigious awards in recognition of his work, among others, the Grand Prix National de la Photographie (1989), the Grand prix Cartier-Bresson (1991), and the International Award in Photography of the Hasselblad Foundation (1992).

This exhibition goes through his entire trajectory that covers more than five decades of work. The extensive selection with more than 150 works reflects his first experimental projects produced at the end of the fifties and during the sixties, as well as his historic series “Gypsies, Invasion and Exiles” and reaching the great panoramic landscapes produced in the last years. In addition the exhibition includes important documentary material, the majority unpublished—layouts, pamphlets, magazines of the period, among others—that allows us to delve into the work as well as the creative process of this author.

The title of the exhibition is Uncertain Nationality, which describes the sense of not belonging to a place, a sense of disorientation so present in his work since his exile from Czechoslovakia after the invasion of Prague, and his permanent interest in territories in conflict.Continue Reading..