About the Event
Silverlens is pleased to announce Equivalent/s, a photography group show curated by Rachel Rillo. Steering away from the typical photography exhibitions,Equivalent/s pursues the idea and methods of abstraction in the medium that is photography.
Equivalent/s brings together works of Frank Callaghan, Corinne de San Jose, Teo Esguerra, Issay Rodriguez, and MM Yu.
Photography is often seen as the successor of painting. When photography was used to document, painting turned to an abstract depiction of the things we could not see.
What we know and don’t know about abstract photography:
- In 1925, American photographer Alfred Stieglitz began his Equivalents series where he took photographs of clouds. These photographs are often recognized to be the first abstract photographs, as the intent was to remove a reading of the subject matter from a literal explanation.
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"The painter constructs, the photographer discloses." - Susan Sontag, On Photography
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A cyanotype is a type of photograph where the image takes the shadow of the object sitting on the paper, given that there is constant and direct source of light. But what if it is raining?
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From its beginnings in the 1800s, photography has been used to document. Portraits at the time were often staged and perfect.
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If we know what we are taking a photograph of, can it still be really still be called abstract?
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Is a photograph a reflection?
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Abstraction is often used in relation to paintings. When painters work in the abstract, they gather source material from things we cannot see, and it is up to them to create their own image. But photography can only take material from visible reality.
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Can we take a photograph of sound?
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Film photography was limited to 36 exposures a roll that people who owned cameras often discerned what to document just so that the roll does not go to waste. It's now easy to accumulate thousands of images so quickly it's almost wasteful. But what's wrong with waste?
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Is it possible to take a photograph of nothing?
On view from 20 October to 17 November 2018 at Silverlens, 2263 Don Chino Roces Avenue Extension, Makati City. For inquiries, contactinfo@silverlensgalleries.com or +632-816-0044.