JAMM Art Gallery’s presentation of photographs by Ali Azarmi, Danielle Rizkallah and Vivian van Blerk, pays homage to pictorialism and to the very origins of photography where the precise objective reality promised by photography has always had to co-exist with the subjective perceptions of the human holding the camera.

Three Visions of a New Pictorialism

The aim of the pictorialists, a movement that gained influence after 1885, was to obtain the recognition of photography as an artistic medium. To do this, photographers suppressed all that appeared too scientific in photography in favour of an aesthetic, plastic and subjective expression. Photography, until then seen as an expression of pure verifiable reality, was to be transformed into an art form, representing personal visions.

Even if today the position of photography as an artistic medium is no longer in doubt, we are now confronted with the need to make sense of the multitude of directions and tendencies photography is taking.

Neo-Pictorialism

In the spirit of the new pictorialists, artist Vivian van Blerk exploits the intrinsic material qualities of photographs. To do this, he prints on sheets of glass using traditional photography chemistry such as silver emulsion, cyanotype or gum printing. His images are photomontages using images he takes himself in the streets, museums, zoos, airports... to create aesthetic compositions, which are indebted to art historical models. His collages, photo negatives and the prints themselves are often drawn on, scratched into and painted over. The artist thus adds his own presence to the photographic trace. His complex themes weave mythology and history into the artist’s very personal metaphysical universe.

The Aerial Viewpoint

150 years ago, Nadar created the first aerial photograph. Since this initial exploit, aerial photography has become a genre of its own. Considered as documentary photography, sometimes for military use, it is of considerable value for cartography and, of course, aerial archaeology. Ali Azarmi offers an artistic vision far beyond the dry document: his dramatic sweeping vision contrasts overexposures with saturated blacks. Through his eyes, Dubai becomes a giant labyrinth, at once structured and fantastic, hypermodern and unreal.

The Family of Man

Creating the 1955 photography exhibition The Family of Man, Edward Steichen was amongst the first to express the new vision that a fundamental mission of photography is to explain “man to man” and man to himself. Danielle Rizkallah appropriates this discourse. Her photography is humanist, inviting us to follow her exploration of the world and its inhabitants. Her pictures offer a message of hope and the fraternity of shared experiences. Witnessing stolen moments of happiness we are touched by an infectious lightness and joy of being that continues to affirm The Family of Man’s optimistic view of the “essential oneness of mankind throughout the world” (Edward Steichen, 1955).

Pascal Odille

 

Press release