CaixaForum València offers an unprecedented and ambitious reading of experimental photography. With more than 90 works by 69 artists such as Man Ray, László Moholy-Nagy, William Klein, Brassaï, Lotte Johanna Jacobi and Katinka Bock. The exhibition, titled "Expanded visions. Photography and experimentation" has been programmed by the ”la Caixa” Foundation in collaboration with the Musée National d’Art Moderne - Center National d’Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou in Paris.
The exhibition project proposes a journey through photographic experimentation from the beginning of the 20th century to the present. It offers a history of experimental photography through the rich collections of the indicated museums. Far from a linear and chronological reading, the exhibition puts historical and contemporary works in dialogue, with the aim of emphasizing technical, formal and thematic affinities, through five sections: "Lights", "Movement", "Alterations", "The vision tested" and "Recreate worlds".
This exhibition ends its journey at CaixaForum València, after passing through the network of CaixaForum Madrid, Barcelona and Seville centres. The exhibition is born from the joint alliance that the ”la Caixa” Foundation and the Center Pompidou sealed in July 2019 for the joint organization of exhibitions in the coming years. After "Camera and city. Urban life in photography and cinema", both institutions collaborated to bring to Spain the exhibition "The universe of Jean Prouvé. Architecture / Industry / Furniture". The exhibition shared between both institutions "Art and Nature" is also current, currently at CaixaForum Madrid, which proposes a fruitful dialogue between different creative languages around art and nature.
The curator of the exhibition, Julie Jones, pointed out yesterday that "it has been a very nice experience in all the places we have visited, and ending here in Valencia is a pleasure. In addition, we want to thank the donation of two Spanish works, because it is a place from which we still have a lot to learn". As she explained, the exhibition does not follow a linear structure, but rather "shows a dialogue of historical and contemporary works with the aim of seeing techniques and themes developed in an analogical way, without the most cutting-edge technology that allows so many possibilities." The head of content for Art Exhibitions at the ”la Caixa” Foundation, Carla Tarruella, and the director of CaixaForum València, Álvaro Borrás, also participated in the presentation.
The exhibition brings together 92 works by 69 artists from very diverse periods and movements, such as Man Ray, László Moholy-Nagy, William Klein, Lotte Johanna Jacobi, Katinka Bock, Brassaï, Beatrice Caracciolo, Roger Parry, Heinz Hajek-Halke, Elisabeth Lennard or Barbara Kasten, among many others. As a novelty, a new selection of works is incorporated into this tour, made up of around twenty photographs. It also houses a piece by Josep Renau, "Consumer Society", from the 1970s, from the IVAM collection. Institut Valencià d'Art Modern, and the photograph "Photomontage" inspired by the França Station by Gabriel Casas, from the 1930s, from the collections of the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya.
The creators of these works come from very diverse fields and disciplines, such as art, science, graphic design, architecture, poetry, illustration, astronomy and writing, among others. Given this diversity and the difficulty of setting boundaries to the multiple areas of work of these artists, the curator of the exhibition, Julie Jones, refers to the experimental photographer as an "inventor." She does so based on a quote from the artist and designer Gérard Ifert, to whom the Center Pompidou dedicated part of an exhibition on the relationships between abstract photography and graphic design.
The exhibition has a mediation project integrated into three points of the exhibition route. Under the title "Photoexperimenta", it invites visitors to try and discover – with a glossary – a selection of techniques with distortions, changes from positive to negative, chemigrams and overprints. On each of the three screens spread throughout the exhibition, visitors will be able to experiment with these techniques and download their photo via a QR code.
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalog that delves into its different aspects. It is completed with a series of four in-depth interviews conducted by curator Julie Jones and Florian Ebner, curator and head of the Photography Department of the Musée National d'Art Moderne - Center de Création Industrielle, with the artists Gottfried Jäger, Jeff Guess, Liz Deschenes and Chen Cohen.
