Petur Thomsen
dal 22/11/2007 al 28/12/2007
Segnalato da
22/11/2007
Petur Thomsen
Camara oscura galeria de arte, Madrid
Imported Landscape. The artist makes us aware of an apparent paradox of contemporary photography: the rejection of traditional photographic paper as a document and its transition towards the photograph as mise-en-scene, the natural versus the artificial.
Next Friday, 23 November, a solo exhibition of the Icelandic photographer Pétur
Thomsen’s series “Imported Landscape“ opens at the camara oscura art gallery.
Winner of “The 10th LVMH young artists” prestigious award, Thomsen (born
1973, Reykjavik) makes us aware of an apparent paradox of contemporary
photography, this is the rejection of traditional photographic paper as a document and
its transition towards the photograph as mise-en-scène, the natural versus the artificial.
This paradox coexists in his work in a truly surprising and free-flowing manner.
The reference to the “Icelandic Series” by Olafur Eliasson the Dane is almost
inevitable, nevertheless, Thomsen’s approach to his own country is absolutely original,
giving it an apparently icy poetry which, on the contrary, talks to us with passion for a
land with open scars, wounded by machines, intruding on a natural setting of earthly
and volcanic purity that is sublime and religious, sacred and unviolated… until now.
Thomsen has set up his camera to make us the steadfast witnesses to the
building of the Kárahnjúkar dam, a multimillion dollar construction project of titanic
proportions, constructed for the exclusive use of the largest aluminium manufacturer in
the world. The title of the series, “Imported Landscape”, acts as a metaphor for the
environmental attacks that we know so well in the rest of Europe, translated with
mechanical and shocking precision into the Icelandic landscape which, unfortunately,
has nothing to envy of the rest of damaged or intervened landscapes elsewhere.
Nevertheless Thomsen takes a step further than just denouncing this fact. The frame,
the light, the colour and the material transport us to an “imported planet” on an outward
bound journey with no apparent return.
For further information, please contact Juan Curto on +34 914 291 734
Opening: Friday, 23 December at 8.00 pm
camara oscura galeria de arte
T. +34 91 429 17 34
c/ Alameda, 16, 1º B ES 28014 Madrid, Spain