Those Eyes, These Eyes, They Fade: New Contemporary Photography Exhibition Lands In Valletta
A new collection of contemporary photographs has landed in Valletta, featuring an approach to metaphysical photography – from the apparent clarity of day to the evanescent depths of night shadows.
The exhibition brings together photographs by Nigel Baldacchino, Bénédicte Blondeau, Bernard Plossu and Awoiska Van der Molen and is running until 13th August at the Valletta Contemporary.
Anne Immelé, the curator, is a co-founder of the Photography Biennale in Mulhouse, France.
Immelé practices her own photography and has exhibited her work numerous times alongside publishing her work in celebrated photo books. Nowadays, she lives and works in the Rhine area and teaches MFA at HEAR, Haute école des arts du Rhine (French art and music school).
The exhibition is inviting the viewer to move through contrasting environments that provoke a multiplicity of perceptions.
Like images perceived within the blink of an eye, the exhibition articulates visions of a reality that is sometimes near, other times far.
From Bernard Plossu’s expansive, radiant deserts to Bénédicte Blondeau’s shadow-lit, barren caves, from Nigel Baldacchino’s urban parks at dawn to Awoiska van der Molen’s vacant urban architecture of inquietude at dusk, the photographs transport the viewer to imagined spaces, oscillating between the first signs of life at daybreak to dusk and disappearance.
Singular representation of natural or man-made objects and structures, these images recall the paradoxical nature of photography, characterised by its ability to record and represent the visible, as well as its capacity to disturb it.
The presentation of photographic ‘evidence’ conveys doubt and introspection, gazing out, as a way of looking in.
Both intimate and distant, these images depict a close, personal outlook that is presented less as something to be grasped than something to witness. The spirit of the work, its silent universe, lies just outside the frame, reinforcing the paradox of photography as evocation rather than portrayal.
The exhibition itself does not present the photographed subjects and spaces in any kind of hierarchy or narrative. Instead, the show is conceived as an extended meditation, an active and poetic contemplation on the medium transcending its defining purpose.
The exhibition is benefitting from the Project Support Fund by Arts Council Malta
Additional support by: NOI Studio, Valletta Vintage, Ambassade de France à Malta, iLAB Photo, Saint Paul Valletta and People and Skin
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