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Textos: Diferentes autores
Fotos: @ Eduardo Ruigómez

Gregory Crewdson, use enormous scenography equipment in their productions, with results that stand out for their subtlety more than for their spectacularity. A public unused to profound exercises of recognition of the author and its work will possibly have difficulty in appreciating them. The work of critics, curators, art gallery owners and editors is useful here, as it has been and still is in any other form of artistic expression, be it visual, literary or musical, as it suggests with its own tastes and interests possible filters that help us in our personal road of clearing and separating between what we like and appreciate and that which we don’t. The well known supposition that if a work is being exposed, there must be a reason for it is in many occasions a valid one, which doesn’t mean that we share the interest or the values of the exposed object; for most of us it is simply comfortable and useful to have a filter that separates and helps us to focus and perhaps understand and appreciate better the coherence, value, motivation or whatever it is that a photographic work represents. Naturally, this doesn’t deprive us of the pleasure of dissenting, of loathing a recognition nor be surprised by the little echo a work can have that, in our eyes, seems simply wonderful.

A particular way of representation o a work consists of the exhibitions organized by gallery owners, in which, at least in the inaugurations, there is often the chance to meet with the authors. I recently assisted to the inauguration of

a good friend’s painting exhibition. Fortunately, I knew her paintings well; some days before she had photographed them before sending them to be hung in the exhibition aula. I say fortunately because during the exhibition I could not stop at all before a single one of them, I was so entertained by conversations with acquaintances that showed up there. Another friend reminded me of this: you go to exhibitions to turn your back to the works and your face to friends. Usually it isn’t the best moment to see works and it is a shame: wasting the opportunity to see work and author together, however much you now both, get distracted in conversations that can always be postponed and toast and celebrate that which is rarely looked at. It is like the get-together of a baptism, in which the main character is lulled asleep in his pram, ignored most of the time, looked at from the height of some knees by those that celebrate him, under the deafening noise of voices of unintelligible conversations that isolate him. It is very different, by the way, when you assist to the premiere of a music play, a film, concert, a theatre play, in which time is wisely divided: shaking hands-silence-applause-shaking hands. That is all very well.

This is all relevant because soon, on May 7th from 19:30 hors onwards, 1:1 will be presented in Artema in Majadahonda, Madrid. For a time now, we have been concerned about how this presentation should be, possibly with a small group of friends, acquaintances,

experts. Will we be patting each other on the back while some numbers of the magazine serve as decoration? We will have to avoid doing that and have the occasion serve some purpose. Once in a while it is good and beneficial to meet and acknowledge the pleasure of a shared observation of a work, though we may appreciate that the true pleasure is in its rapt and solitary observation. It is such an old topic…

The eternal contrast between the observation enjoyed by the private collector and the (usually) noisy observation of the museum visitor.

Therefore, for its contribution to the extension of the solitary enjoyment of art, how can we deny the value of the reproductions, essence of photography that allow a coming together to the most interesting creations? Susan Sontag already said that precisely because they are flat, photographs are much less detrimental to damage by reproduction than paintings (and sculptures, buildings or landscapes, by decreasing order).

So let us enjoy the opportunity to share 1:1 and share among all of us who make it, readers, photographers and editors, and then return to the solitary pleasure of the personal computer.