oxymoron-exhibition-blog

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Constantin Schlacther - La Trajectoire du Gyrovague

Constantin Schlachter’s work, La Trajectoire du Gyrovague, follows an instinctive trajectory, tracing the pathways of Gyrovags; ancient travelling monks which explored unknown lands since the rise of Christianity. His photographic research encloses the contrasts between micro and macro, organic and inorganic, abstract and real through the use of both analogue and digital supports. Schlachter manages to represent sensations, symbolisms and the irrational unveiling unexplored, subconscious worlds to the viewers. 

At the beginning of Christianity, Gyrovagi were wandering monks without fixed residence or leader- ship. Free from all dogmas, they were constrained by a strong link to nature and primitive matter. From wanderings and re- treats in the Nature - those lonely periods which transform experiences and lead to self- interrogations - Constantin Schlachter developed an ascetic and instinctive photography, following the way of thinking of the Gyrovagi. Using different media and through analog and digital manipulations, he fixes the original emotion he experienced. Each medium and process corresponding to one specific state of mind. La Trajectoire du Gyrovague is an inner-quest in mental landscapes, where the notions of micro-macro, organic-mineral are confused, thus forming a loop where subjects are constantly reinvented and transformed. In this obscure and natural

[oxymoron-exhibition-blog]

Julia Borissova - Dimitry

In the body of work Dimitry, Russian artist Julia Borissova investigates past historical events to understand current social contexts. The mystery surrounding the killing of Tsarevich Dimitry, last son of Ivan the Terrible, contributed to the diffusion of speculations around his death during the last decades of the XVIth century. Through strongly manipulated images, collages and overlaps the artist replaces the absence of Tsarevich, exploring the thin line be- tween past and present in the visual and cultural habits of Russia.

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Igor Omulecki - Wnuk

We usually assume that what we see is reality. That reality is precisely as we see it. We believe in what we see. We do not scrutinize the very process of seeing, or its components, or ourselves as the perceiving subjects. Whenever we face reality with our mind temporarily emptied, the latter instantaneously begins to refill, again. Perception is not a tabula rasa. The way in which we perceive is already structured, it proceeds towards a goal de- signed by nature. Thinking can be temporarily paused. Exiting the Emptiness lets one see how it is done: one recognizes the functioning of the mind searching for a structure of the seen image, one experiences the autonomy of mental processes. Igor’s mind was looking for geometrical forms, rhythms, and repetitions. He could observe a fascinating process in which perception was subconsciously structuring itself, coding the action, finding the mechanism to register an image. The fact that his mind captures the simplifications and repetitions is a rudimentary mechanism of perception. In this project Igor has sought to achieve a state of the maximum possible reduction of conscious creation.

[oxymoron-exhibition-blog]

Michel Le Belhomme - The Two Labyrinths

While Michel Le Belhomme holds a great respect for classical traditions of photography, he believes it is indispensable to place them in perspective. “The Two Labyrinths” explores its most blatant legend: landscape and its representation. Landscape, the ultimate romantic subject, most often expresses itself from the angle of the contemplative or the breathtaking. But it is to be seen firstly as a system, perfect theorem of time and space, of flows and crossings, of borders and intermixing. In this series, the artist firmly chooses to stand “in conflict” with the landscape, as a vision and as a product of space, he humbly places himself in a structuralist approach of the spectrums of exploration, analysis and experimentation of this visible production. To experience landscape is to practice it, to place it in contradiction, thus creating a peripheral vision. The visible then asserts itself through deconstruction and alteration. Without moving away from the primary function of an image, which is to show, this series elaborates hybrid and fanciful creatures, images of images, representations of representations, resonances of multiple echoes.

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Stefanie Moshammer - Land of Black Milk

Land of Black Milk is a triangulation between document, aesthetic and individual perception and has its origin in Rio de Janeiro. It is a photographic essay, amassed as a set of visions, offering hints of people and circumstances in and outside the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. The series invites the complexities and dualities to the experiences of this place. Rio de Janeiro is not so much one city as different worlds. Multiplied realities of one place and the spa- ce in between. A two-ness, two warring ideals in one body. In there, favelas are everywhere. They are in the heart of the metropolis, in the periphery, in every corner of the city. And they stand in sharp contrast to the asphalted city nearby. The two-ness of a land, torn between a heavy past and an uncertain future.

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Alexander Burgess - 1:1

In his work 1:1 Burgess brings to life size objects and people captured through Google Earth. By blowing up the images to 1:1 scale, the photographs result abstract and impossible to recognize. Yet, thanks to the titles of the images we are able to understand the content of the picture. Through this exercise the British artist highlights the brittleness of digital technologies bringing to light the contradictions of contemporary instruments. 

[oxymoron-exhibition-blog]

Balazs Mate - Parallax

Parallax is part of an on- going project, a perpetual examination of the modus operandi of our perception and interpretation and an intellectual and visual exploration of the disturbing and the uncanny. The images of the series are conceived to bother our consciousness and question our ability of meaning-making. “I believe it when I see it” we say. A dictum that in fact presupposes a total confidence in our perception, in our senses and our cognition. While in everyday life we would rarely question ourselves about our perception, photography with its contemplative moments gives us the opportunity to explore a spectrum of possible perspectives, senses and significations. The clichés of the series were conceived to subvert the ordinary system of points of reference that de- fines how we see and comprehend things - space, light, forms and figures in the picture. They suggest us that “something’s not okay”. But instead of imposing an ulti- mate meaning, they invite us on an unconstrained, deliberating discovery.

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/poster post

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info/

/Curated by Sebastiano Campoccia, Nicola Novello and Rocco Donà 

/Design by Sebastiano Campoccia

/Opening at 6.30 pm @ Vicolo Barberia 28, Treviso (Italy)

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about/

/OXYMORONoksýmōron

La convivenza di soggetti contrastanti/‘ossimori' nella cultura popolare contemporanea è sempre più vivida/evidente. Sia nella politica, che nella comunicazione come nell’arte, l’idea che due realtà opposte possano coesistere sotto il nome di una sola realtà è sempre più tangibile nella quotidianità.

Spesso una realtà è indissolubilmente essa solo se messa a confronto con il suo opposto.

I primi esempi che concernano la materia in questione risalgono sia alla cultura occidentale che alla cultura orientale, ai tempi di Eraclito nell’ antica Grecia e alle origini del Taoismo in China.

Da un lato Eraclito parlava di opposizione come struttura della del mondo nel quale ogni cosa ha al suo interno un conflitto perenne e inevitabile, altrimenti dall'altro lato il Taoismo esprime questo senso di dualismo nell’idea che l’opposizione è presente in ogni singolo elemento della natura: luce e oscurità, uomo e donna, movimento e staticità.

In entrambi i casi l’idea di opposizione è necessaria.

Nonostante una consapevolezza sempre più conforme al relativismo d’oggi, l’idea di contrasto ai tempi di Eraclito e del Taoismo, non era così visibile agli occhi di tutti. Come molte altre filosofie, l'idea di contrasto era molto distante dalla cultura popolare ed esisteva soltanto nelle menti più argute.

Parafrasando questi 'dati’ storici si può persino arrivare a tradurre lo stesso significato nell’informatica - alter ego di madre natura. La stessa informatica è quasi per definizione realtà composta da numerosissime realtà (codici/leggi), una opposta all’altra (codice binario). Queste, con strutture sottoposte alle leggi della tecnologia, creano realtà apparentemente semplici.

Questi sono solo esempi di come il tema è stato trattato con diversi obiettivi, i primi cercando di accrescere la consapevolezza filosofica in materia, l’ultima invece con riguardi pratici; la politica odierna come l’estetica posso magari di riflesso avere simili attitudini, a volte negative a volte positive.

La materia sulla quale si vuole investigare ha la potenzialità di liberare l’immaginazione per andare a riflettere e colmare una probabile vuotezza possibilmente proprio parte di questa tematica.

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Da una precedente collaborazione tra i tre i artisti e curatori è emerso l’interesse di voler indagare sul tema dell’opposizione nelle sue prospettive più varie. Questo interesse si è trasformato successivamente in una necessità vera e propria di realizzare una mostra che trattasse la tematica attraverso l’arte del mezzo fotografico anche questo nelle sue più varie possibili angolazioni processuali.