Resonances

Resonances-Fundación MAPFRE Collections is articulated as a sort of experimental manifesto that studies what images tell us about the past and how they resonate in the present. To this effect, a series of works have been selected from Fundación MAPFRE’s collection of photography—which is particularly rich in classic North American authors—with the objective of seeking out their reverberation or resonance in contemporary photographic practices and arranging a discourse that will allow for pedagogical speculation on the transition from photography to post-photography. In other words, illustrating the gap between one type of photography—committed to truth and memory—and the anti-artistic experiences that understand images as shared gestures of activism and social articulation in today’s world.

One of the definitions of the term “resonance” refers to the subject of art. As defined by the show’s curator, Joan Fontcuberta, it involves: “a game of correspondences that establishes an affinity between different works, fostering a dialogue between their respective authors and production periods.” In line with this definition, Fontcuberta has brought forth the work of artists such as Lee Friedlander, Garry Winogrand, Helen Lewitt, Robert Adams, Diane Arbus and Emmet Gowin—who by now are considered classic photographers—found within Fundación MAPFRE’s collections and has placed it in a dialogue with that of different contemporary artists in an effort to defossilize the former group’s images, extracting them from the past and allowing them to speak of the present.

Therefore, “Helen Levitt’s street scenes find their “dance partner” in the decisive instants captured by Jon Rafman on Google Street View. The freakism in Diane Arbus’s images will dance with that in La parada de los monstruos, by Juana Gost. Garry Winogrand’s beautiful women will dance with the alleged missing prostitutes that make up Joachim Schimd’s series L.A. Women. The maze- like compositions by Lee Friedlander will dance with the unconnected images in Random Series by Miguel Ángel Tornero. The forlorn mall patrons portrayed by Robert Adams will dance with the specters detected in virtual cartographies by Paolo Cirio. Finally, the intimacy of Emmet Gowin will dance with Kurt Caviezel’s stolen privacy.