the mistakes and experiments that revolutionized the art of photography

They said it Ray man in the early twenties one day turned on the light by mistake of your workshop. From this casual exposure of the sensitive paper to the light source, a new way of understanding photography, infinitely expanding your possibilities. Framing, as this technique that takes snapshots without a camera is known, had been known since the mid-19th century, but Man Ray systematized its use by portraying everyday objects in monochromatic, poetic and weightless compositions, which mysteriously make the objects float, elevating this technique to the category of art. On the other hand, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy published his book in 1925 Painting, photography, cinema in which it lays the foundations of a new visual language where the negative image of the painting became a new way of seeing the world in tune with the zeitgeist surreal, also containing subversive messages of political or social criticism.

Man Ray, along with Moholy-Nagy and other great names in the history of photography such as Barbara Kruger, Thomas Ruff, Wolfang Tillmans, William Klein or Dora Maarstar of the exhibition Expanded views. Photography and experimentation. It is the third co-production between the ”la Caixa” Foundation and the Pompidou Center to debut for the first time at its headquarters in Madrid before traveling to other Spanish cities such as Barcelona, ​​Seville or Valencia.

From the extraordinary collections of the French center, the curator Julie Jonescurator of the photography department at the Pompidou, selected 172 works by 107 artists from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day, which explore photography as a playground without rules, where creation is born from errors, coincidences, deconstructions, drifts.

Abstraction and 'collage' abound, although pieces also stand out in which the very nature of photography is attacked

A freedom of action and thought that defines the artistic avant-gardes of the early 20th century, such as futurism, constructivism or surrealism, which intertwine in this exquisite exhibition, allowing authors from different generations or disciplines, artists and scientists to coexist in the same rooms . , establishing bridges between the infinite possibilities of the medium.

Throughout six rooms entitled “Light”, “Movement”, “Changes”, “Recreating worlds”, “Tested visions” and “Anatomies” an open account of a sensitive environment is constructed, not only to chemical exposure but to the instinct historical. Abstraction abounds and collagealthough there are also pieces in which the very nature of photography is attacked, pieces made from technical deconstruction that provide a fresh and surprising vision of the photographic medium, as is the case with the series Photos of me photographing myself in a photo in Rudolph Steinermade in the late 90s, in which he shoots an air rifle directly at a slide inside a pinhole box that he made himself.

[The ghostly museum of photography, in the decisive moment]

The shot allows the image to originate and at the same time reach the exact point of view of the shooter, aiming at the very concept of “photographic shooting”. or in Walker Evans Destroyed Negatives by Lisa Oppenheim, a 2015 work in which she recovers files rejected by Roy Strykerdirector of the North American Farm Security Administration photographic mission (1935-1937), in which, among others, they participated Walker Evans It is Dorothea Lange, who punched holes in rejected negatives to prevent them from being copied. Oppenheim positives only the perforated part and photographs what is missing in the original image, inverting the negative-positive dichotomy and the hollow versus the full.

The emphasis on expository grammar falls on a large circular photographic installation from the year 93 entitled from hand to mouthin Jeff Guess, 7 meters in diameter in silver gelatin. The snapshots were produced by placing a 35mm negative in his mouth using his lips as an opening and using this cavity as a camera obscura while reaching for household objects with his hand. Thus, each frame, printed at a 1:1 scale, contains traces of saliva and traces resulting from its biological manipulation.

expanded views It is an essential exhibition to understand photography from another place. A place of creation and experimentation –also from science– in which we make the invisible visible, rediscover devices, reinvent languages, imagine other new poetics for history.

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