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In 1992-3, while working on the city in b&w, I was introduced to colour printing. By now I felt I had exhausted conventional formal solutions both for the project and with photography. I was determined to find a radically different way of expression in photography, and in that sense, colour was a breath of fresh air. From the moment I knew we were to print in colour, I had made my mind that I would experiment and seek new approaches. Two lines of thought guided this: One was to search for a system that used a commonly accepted formal language (in other art forms) to deliver the content. I was keen to subvert what had become of the formal devices generally recognized (and used) in popular culture. For instances, form used in abstractionism or abstract expressionism, had become detached from its purpose and meaning. Like everything else, it had become absorbed and recuperated within a system of value that had nothing to do with its original purpose. It had become the politics of style over substance. In a way, I was eager to change this, and use that formal language to bring it back to deliver the content and its meaning. This clearly was a political issue, and I was determined to seek a language that was |
generally used, recognised and ‘modern’ to portray the reality I saw and felt. The other approach was to use colour outside any conventions. From the start, I knew that I wanted to ‘paint’ with light and colour. This liberated me from the conventional photographic representation and allowed me to experiment in a radical way. This portfolio is the result. I was truly convinced I had arrived to a solution that answered all my anxieties. Here I show 11 images from that process. Of course as soon as you arrive somewhere, new questions arise, and in the end, I felt I was truly finished with photographic representation. I stoped doing photography, stoped seeing photo exhibitions and for 14 years went into exile and worked with video instead, which I felt was, in a sense, more reliable. Nevertheless, I show the images for what they are. I have the distance now to see its merits as well as its shortcomings. Still, as a means of representation, particularly for a subject such as the City, I find it interesting, innovative and effective. The City became a fantastic place full of moving ghosts, with its own human microclimate, either intensely hot or cold, and where its own geography (and its economical and social implications) is either too blurred or too sharp. |