Héctor Mediavilla, Contemporary Art Portraits
In this series, I wanted to capture the communication processes that occur within art. Thus, I single out the spectator standing in front of the work, alluding to the inevitable encounter in the gallery or museum. The photographs show people from behind looking at paintings. I offer them as fictional works, a novel experience in my photographic approach. In my series, the contemporary paintings from ARCO (Madrid) and ZONA MACO (Mexico city) serve as backdrop for the portrait of the characters, and simultaneously raise “another reality” within photography. The spectator is in front of the work but with his back to the person looking at the photograph, two games of unidirectional sight: a portrayed observer who sees and knows he is observed.
Text by Yesenia García Zavala
Lucia Ganieva, Ermitazhniki
When I lived in St. Petersburg I often visited the museum Hermitage. I noticed that, while the paintings and other art objects in the museum are admired every day by thousands of spectators and are photographed endlessly, there is little attention for the ladies sitting in the rooms and watching over the museum treasures. I always found these ladies special, very strict concerning the behaviour of the visitors, but on the other hand they talked with love and passion about the art objects in their rooms.
In 2005 I came in contact with the administration of the museum and asked permission to make photographs. In the summer of 2006 I came back and started to make portraits of the ladies. During my work I came with the idea to choose for each portrait a painting from the enormous museum collection, which in one way or another interacts with the portrayed person. I consider this series to be a tribute to these silent workers and by portraying them I want to bring them out of anonymity.
