The Chao Phraya River is the lifeblood of Thailand. It is born as the Ping and Nan rivers become one. From there its waters flow south to Bangkok. These pictures are a recording of what Danish photographer Jacob Aue Sobol saw and the people he met along The River of Kings in Bangkok. Its streets, its people, its lights sifted by the black and white contrast so particular of Sobol´s work. His approach to people is very special, his search for beauty in unique compositions that poke around in between the grotesque and the unbridled at times and between the perverse and childish on the other, but always in search for love. In this column, his gallerist in Madrid, Diego Alonso, shares thoughts related to Sobol’s work.
Black and White photography has challenged the world of truth; it has defined a parallel reality beyond comprehension. We have absorbed informations coming from a medium presumed to be close to real life but that is seriously far from it, much closer to a hallucinatory realm. When have our dreams or imagination been deprived of color? When have our collective unconscious been on black and white?
Photography has been from its beginning, somewhere in the middle of 19th century, a tool to help socioeconomic controlled development, taking us to what we understand today as “common… ordinary”.
The concept of“Ordinary” or “Common” did not exist before we could print a presence or personality on film or paper. (nor even think of image in motion).No one paid any attention to the appearance of the others, to the other.
Nowadays we concentrate on an individuality pushed and pampered by fashion, images and aesthetics, leaving aside humanity, sensibility and love. This is where evolution has taken us, in this world dominated by the gods of technology and science where religion has been abandoned, forgotten. No more rules, control or order we are just left with money.
We travel far, and do not see humanity. Trying to find a difference to pumper us, that makes us feel comfortable. That creates an “Other” where it’s just light; silver and paper. Humanity is there, on the streets that seem different from our streets but are in reality so similar. Can we change that? Can we move from our convention and accept a different stream, a different source, a different river?
That’s the challenge, the purpose, the quest that we face with this work.That bring us a vision, of a world that is there, waiting for us to accept it and to acknowledge it as a part of our life.
Diego Alonso
Diego Alonso is the director of the Mondo Galeria, in Madrid, Spain.
Jacob Aue Sobol, By the River of Kings
February 17 to March 30, 2018
Mondo Galeria
Travesía Belén, 2
28004 Madrid
Spain
