Fotografiska in Stockholm presents its new photographic exhibition In Absence by Monika Macdonald. This show is accompanied by the catalogue (Kehrer Verlag) comprising 42 poetic and evocative images that jump out of the page, demanding our attention.
« There is a kind of erotic magnetism emanating from the people portrayed, rather than originating in the eye of the beholder. Instead of enticing interaction, it is an invitation to peek into a private world. »
Monika Macdonald
That Monica Macdonald should choose a quotation from Brave New World starting with “But” is no coincidence. A sentence that begins with “but” hovers between something that has been said and something that is about to be said. The photographs in the exhibition In Absence pulsate with that which is otherwise unspoken.
It is a reflection of our times in which old patterns are broken up and new ones are not communicated, where that which is purportedly normal remains stuck in a condition that many have already left. That which is found in the absence of definitions and is everyday flesh and blood: abandoned – born, divorced – newly found, singles – solitaires…
Macdonald has chosen to portray mothers who live in a situation where the nuclear family is not the obvious norm, but neither do they want to be defined on the basis of a simplified image of upright womanhood.
Finding new forms of community is an ongoing process, a crooked path with no given or simple answers. It has little to do with definitions of good and bad emotions; it is a place where women are neither completely evil nor completely good, neither against one another, nor against men. Instead, here everything has its place, from introspection to lounging on the sofa, from sensual negligees to tender kisses between unwashed curtains of hair. That which is otherwise not visible – that which occurs In Absence.
EXHIBITION
In Absence
Monika Macdonald
From February 26th to April 10th, 2016
Fotografiska
Stadsgårdshamnen 22
116 45 Stockholm
Sweden
http://fotografiska.eu
BOOK
In Absence
Monika Macdonald
Kehrer Verlag
Designed by Patric Leo
Hardcover
22 x 28 cm
72 pages
42 color ills.
English
ISBN 978-3-86828-679-3
Euro 29,90 / £24.00
http://www.kehrerverlag.com
http://www.monikamacdonald.com
