EXIT # 14: ABSTRACTION
Cover: Wolfgang Tillmans, Freischwimmer # 16, 2003.
Main artists: Adam Fuss, Wolfgang Tillmans, Jorg Sasse, Jason Salavon and Dario Urzay.
Texts by: Dore Ahston, Gottfried Jager, Mercedes Vicente, Rosa Olivares, Dena Cowan and Seve Penelas.
San Marcelo, 30 . Madrid 28017 . Spain
What can be abstracted from abstraction? An inner need to unveil the indescribable, or engineering issuing from a mystic vocation? A cosmic palimpsest or a hole drawing everything in and devouring it? Decorative gestures or geometric self-referencing? Absolutely everything in order to reach, paradoxically, the void of nothing.
EXIT #14 analyzes all the sides of the polyhedron of abstraction in photographic production, from the first avant-garde experiments to the latest digital possibilities. In the opening editorial, Rosa Olivares establishes the bases explored throughout this issue in “The enigma of abstraction”.
In her article, “Abstracting thoughts from abstraction”, the prestigious American historian and art critic Dore Ashton interweaves a series of thesis and ideas from literature, poetry, painting and its derivation into abstract photography with exemplary cases such as Alfred Stieglitz and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
With a more systematic approach, the German artist and professor Gottfried Jager considers the core of photographic abstraction in his article “Abstract Photography“, by addressing the difference between the abstraction of the photograph and the abstraction of the objects in the photograph. From this premise and the evolution of photographic abstraction, of the creation of non-representational images, Jager concludes by establishing an illuminating typology of abstract photography.
The main artist of this issue is the British photographer Adam Fuss and the interview conducted by Mercedes Vicente reveals a career with differing methods of approaching the abstract image, from the primitive techniques of the photogram to the simple but effective methods with which he captures his well known color spirals and smoky atmospheres. But the work of this Londoner living in New York also consists of forceful figurative images -birds, dresses, babies, snakes, worms- thus broadening the discussion regarding figuration/abstraction to the point of touching on a more symbolic and conceptual essence of what we understand or what we are referring to when we speak of the abstract.
The dossiers of work by the Germans Wolfgang Tillmans and Jorg Sasse, the American Jason Salavon, and the Spaniard Dario Urzay round off the publication while simultaneously making for a good display of the diversity of paths abstraction has taken in contemporary photography.
What is more, illustrating the abovementioned articles, there are reproductions of other images by numerous artists: Lidia Benavides, Rudolf Bonvie, Daniel Canogar, Rufo Criado, Wim Delvoye, Joao Paulo Feliciano, Roland Fischer, Christopher Giglio, Alex Haas, Heinrich Heidersberger, Gottfried Jager, Barbara Kasten, Peter Keetman, Jonathan Lewis, Rene Machler, Richard Misrach, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Rafael Navarro, Jose Luis Neto, Concha Prada, Susan Rankaitis, Thomas Ruff, Ricardo B. Sanchez, Sean Scully, Andres Serrano, Alfred Stieglitz, Frank Thiel, Milagros de la Torre, Juan Usle, Ian Wallace and James Welling, among others, thus completing this new issue of EXIT.
* Upcoming issue, in September, EXIT # 15 “SPORTS”.
EXIT. Quarterly, thematic publication on image and culture, photography and contemporary art. Bilingual edition with articles in English and Spanish. Published by Olivares & Associates.
San Marcelo, 30 . Madrid – 28017 . Spain . Tel. +33 91 404 97 40 . Fax +33 91 326 00 12
Information and special projects: exit@exitmedia.net
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Available at museums, art centers, specialized bookshops in major cities in the international art circuit. International distribution by Idea Books: idea@ideabooks.nl
Also published by Olivares & Associates: Exit BOOK -one magazine per year on art and contemporary visual culture books) and Exit EXPRESS -monthly magazine of information and debate on contemporary art. (Spanish editions only).
