05/04/21 - Philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote that, in these times, humans live between the past and an uncertain future, so we must learn to think differently, without resorting to more traditional ways of thinking. Tomoko Yoneda (Japan, 1965), influenced by this concept, wants us to look more deeply at her photographic images, since they are capable of suggesting a different future.

With these words by Paul Wombell, we are welcomed to Tomoko Yoneda's exhibition at the Mapfre Foundation in Madrid, an exhibition that is almost a retrospective of her work, focused on the geographical scope, from Europe to Asia.

Western-style window, by Tomoko Yoneda (1995)

Classroom 1, by Tomoko Yoneda (2004)

The first photo is an image taken after the earthquake on January 1997 in the city of Köbe, Japan, the residence of Tomoko's family. She was not in the city at the time of the event, but she traveled three months later and that’s when she takes the shot of the window in black and white: a residual image of what was an uncontrollable natural tragedy. The second is from 2004, when, with the city already rebuilt, she photographs a classroom that served as a temporary funeral home after the earthquake. 

Railroad track, by Tomoko Yoneda (2007)

Shenyang, China

A photo of a natural or urban landscape may be, at first glance, inconsequential but if we read the sign, everything changes. The photographer manages to create tension between what she portrays and what happened in these places. For example, a view of a minefield in Paju, South Korea, now a tourist attraction, or a simple train track that witnessed a simulated bomb attack by the Japanese army to justify its invasion of Manchuria.

But not everything on display is about a natural disaster or the war. One of the curatorial subjects of the exhibition has the title Between the Visible and the Invisible, where we are invited to look through the glasses of prominent figures of the 20th century, to see details of pages of books and letters that are still relevant today. The shots have the particularity of locating us in the exact place where the historical figure would be, which helps us to imagine what they would be thinking at that precise moment. 

Finally we choose two photos of the natural world, as if to predict a future in it. The first shows the ephemeral ice crystals that form at low temperatures and that deform and disappear as soon as the degrees increase. It is a perfect combination between the photographic aesthetics of the Bauhaus, which borders on the abstract, and Japanese sensibilities, where by looking at a fleeting moment of the physical world, something more profound about the nature of existence can be revealed. In the second one we see a group of chrysanthemums that look like jellyfish floating in the ocean. 

Chrysanthemums, de Tomoko Yoneda (2011)

The exhibition is quite extensive: it occupies almost three floors of the foundation. The curatorship is excellent: each photo has an explanation so as not to lose detail of what we are seeing. Unfortunately, as in almost all exhibitions in which works are exhibited under a glass, it is impossible to avoid interference from the reflection caused the lights (which seems to never be studied in depth).

 21/09/20 - The American photographer still amazes us.  This time, from the exhibition "Vivian Maier: The Color Work", at FOLA, we choose her self-portraits.

We have already seen here, and in other exhibitions, her shots of Chicago's and New York's architecture, as of the locals, focusing on the poor and the elderly. Today we'll talk about two of her 'selfies'. In both of them we admire her skill for composition and her very particular sense of humor.  

In the first of the portraits, the one with the dog, we guess her presence from the shadow projected on the street and wall. Maybe it was not her intention to photograph her shadow, but when reaching for the animal, she must have been surprised by it and decided to include it. According to Anne Morin, who has been studying the archives of the Maloof Collection since 2010, with Maier's 150.000 negatives,  the self-portraits and the shadows represent more than a quarter of all her photos. 

Self-portrait, by Vivian Maier, 

Chicago / Color Photography

In the second “selfie” on display, Vivian appears as a reflection on a polished surface with lights around her, much like an instagram filter. Through this spontaneous shot we get to see the situations that surrounded her and that she took for her advantage. These shots are so skillful that through them we are allowed a glimpse to her life and home.

Self-portrait, by Vivian Maier

Chicago, August 1976, Color Photography

There's also a photo of 1956, entitled Self-Portrait, in which we see her posing, slightly turned, with the hands on her back. Although we don't know who took this photo, it's the perfect shot to physically meet Vivian Maier (1926 -2009), this woman who spent all her life in anonymity, guarding her privacy, till her archives were accidentally found in a warehouse. The rent was long overdue and all its contents went for auction. That's how her negatives were rescued from oblivion and Maier had the chance to change her life posthumously. 

Self-portrait, by Vivian Maier (1956)

Color Photography

Sitting on the Wall, by Weng Feijun (Weng Fen)

Color photography

23/07/20 - Weng Peijun, known as Weng Fen, is an artist bon in Hainan, China, in 1961. Since the end of the 90s, his photographic works have focused on urbanization and the portrait of the big cities from afar, specially from a landscape enclosed by a wall. Thus he seeks to exemplify the paradox destruction/construction by men, sacrificing a natural (green) habitat to give birth to skyscrapers. These buildings of steel and concrete represent the home of new inhabitants, those who migrate from other cities to live in the modern industrial centers that are popping up in the new Capitalist China.  

Wen Fen places a human figure, much like Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) used to do with his little man facing the vastness of the sea or the mountains, overwhelmed by Nature. In this case, a teenage girl on her back, sits on the wall to observe the skyscrapers. She seems to be grasping her fragility as opposed to overwhelming growth of her country. 

Weng Fen's work is recognized in the Western art market because of this significant representation of Asian new urbanization. Each one of his photos reaches high prices in auctions and are part of private collection and exhibitions in American museums. 

However, the girl on her back is always a high school student. We see her uniform and her books on the floor. To us, she represents the innocence of youth facing those mega-constructions. But for others, she is a pornographic image translated in her pose, her hands, her turning face and the opportunism of the moment. Weng Fen was banned in China. 

Sitting on the Wall, by Weng Feijun (Weng Fen)

Sitting on the Wall - Shenzhen (1), by Weng Fen (2002)

Measures: 58 x 74 cm,  2/10