ARIADNEPHOTOGALLERY.COM e-mail : info@ariadnephotgallery.com Director Costis Antoniadis
This catalogue was published by ariadnephotogallery.com on the occasion of the exhibition “About a Secet” 15 February - 22 March 2014 © ariadnephotogallery.com - For the edition © The photographers - For the photographs © The writers - For the Texts
About a Secret Bryan Formhals Chema Hernandez Nils Jorgensen Zisis Kardianos Charalampos Kydonakis Junku Nishimura Jack Simon Rupert Vandervell Delyan Valchev Ania Vouloudi Pierre Wayser
We assume that photographs always depict something interesting; an event or a situation. We also assume that the person who points out the scene, that is, the photographer, captured this particular instant in order to communicate something with a broader meaning and that therefore he or she arranged the image composition accordingly. So for us interpreting a photograph begins with the distinction, selection and evaluation of elements depicted in the photographed scene as important or unimportant. However, even if we ignore the intent of the photographer, the way the scene is arranged, is sufficient to substitute this knowledge: what is in the foreground and more or less in the center of the scene we consider it as the “subject� of the image. This normally applies to all types of images. However in the case of photography, we also have the awareness that the photographer was there, saw something, and something forced him to raise his camera to capture it.
But what if the above conventions are canceled? How will we know what to look for in a photograph and what not to look for? In the early 1960s, the American photographer Joel Meyerowitz posed the following question: “... how much discordance may contain a photo and still be readable? Is it possible to shoot interesting images without relying on a central fact to keep consistency?” But we could also pose the question in a different way: We can also pose the question differently: why would a photographer decide to divert our attention from what motivated him to take a particular photograph. A feasible answer is to make us think more, to free us to choose and judge what is crucial and what is insignificant in photographs, and thus to life itself. The importance of this type of photographs is precisely that their content is unreadable: when we realize that we have nothing to understand or explain we can ease ourselves in a delightful wandering among and in the images of the world. The creativity of the photographers participating in the exhibition «About a Secret” is powered by the wandering, the limitless horizon of the unexpected evidences or remarkable events. It is for this reason that the selection of photographs was a difficult process. How could anyone resist the awareness and insight that these photographers have infused in their work? How is it possible to reject the many highly comprehensible and truthful representations and choose the illegible few? Bryan Formhals, Jose Maria Hernandez, Nils Jorgensen, Zisis Kardianos, Charalampos Kydonakis, Junku Nishimura, Jack Simon, Rupert Vandervell, Delyan Valchev, Ania Vouloudi and Pierre Wayser are Wayser are photographers who persistently observe people around them and depict their gestures, shadows or reflections. They often invent new forms which, without violating the rules of straight photography, reveal uncharted regions of the visible. The exhibition «About a Secret» illustrates some aspects of this exploration: when photography becomes a secret about a secret as Diane Arbus has put it. To reveal this aspect photographs should stand as autonomous works, silent and illegible free of any context. In some cases, it is true that their succession in the exhibition or the accompanying catalogue creates unexpected associations, highlights deviations or reveals unpredicted territories of expression. But this also is part of the adventure of roving photographs. The photographers who entrusted me their work know this well enough. For this trust, I warmly thank them. Costis Antoniadis
Charalampos Kydonakis, Thessaloniki_2
Junku Nishimura, Hold Tight
Junku Nishimura, Table
Junku Nishimura, Hana-bi
Junku Nishimura, Mano Bailando
Charalampos Kydonakis, Rethymnon
Charalampos Kydonakis, Chania
Charalampos Kydonakis,Thessaloniki_1
Delyan Valchev, Untitled (3)
Delyan Valchev, Self Portrait with Strangers
Delyan Valchev, Untitled (4)
Nils Jorgensen, Rain
Charalampos Kydonakis, Brussels
Nils Jorgensen, Asleep
Rupert Vandervell , Long Way Home
Pierre Wayser, Turning Violent
Zisis Kardianos, Off Season #6
Pierre Wayser , Highway Knees
Delyan Valchev, Through the City
Bryan Formhals, Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, 2007
Zisis Kardianos, Promenade Strolling
Jack Simon, Untitled
Jack Simon, Untitled
Jack Simon, Untitled
Pierre Wayser , The Pot Head Pixies
Chema Hernandez, Smoking time, 2001
Name: Bryan Formhals, Venice Beach, California, 2006
Delyan Valchev, Untitled (2)
Zisis Kardianos, The Prompter
Pierre Wayser , Candle Mambo
Zisis Kardianos, Hiding Face
Pierre Wayser, All Our Yesterdays
Zisis Kardianos, The cry
Delyan Valchev, Untitled
Zisis Kardianos, Vis-Ă -vis
Junku Nishimura, Good Times
Chema Hernandez, Two girls at the pharmacy door, 2011
Ania Vouloudi, Untitled
Ania Vouloudi, Untitled
Nils Jorgensen, Shelter
Jack Simon, Untitled
Nils Jorgensen, Scrape Your Knee It Is Only
Bryan Formhals, Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, 2006