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KAUNAS PHOTO 2014 » Héctor Mediavilla

Contemporary Art Portraits 

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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 propose them as fictional works, a novel experience in my photographic approach. Of course, the series is reminiscent of paintings like “Woman at the window” by Caspar David Friedrich in 1822 and “Girl at the window” by Salvador Dalí in 1925. In these paintings, (painted almost 100 years apart) a double vision is shown: a window that frames a particular environment, in which a character with his back to us, gazes at the horizon; and the painting itself as a whole is to be viewed by the observer.

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.