Born in Paris

Nnam Yllas #1

“For more than a year, I have been waiting to see this exhibition, and here I am. So close to the art, I can almost touch it. Instead, I raise the camera and allow the artwork to touch me. The unimportant details take center stage while the actual art pieces recede into the background. After a while, the absurdity of the situation hits me. Why do I tune out the real objects in front of me actively searching for what I want to see?”

Nnam Yllas, a new body of work, born in Paris. A good place to be born in. At a fantastic exhibition at Jeux de Paume. Moments of wonder, awe and I confess, a few tears as well - I expected the experience to be overwhelming. What I did not expect was the urge to photograph. The instinct saying this is important even if I do not understand why. I wonder what the people around me thought of the crying woman with the camera who seemed to photograph the images in the worst possible way: too close, at a weird angle, without enough light, moving around the image with the camera glued to her face. If they only knew ….

To see the resulting body of work, go here.

Remembered light

Sally Mann has always been my inspiration. When I found out that her exhibit at the Gagosian gallery in NY coincides with my travel for the "Trees" exhibit opening - I could not be happier.

I arrived to NY at 8:30 in the morning, a bit crumpled after after the red-eye flight from LA. As the room at my hotel was not available yet, I left everything but my camera and wallet at the hotel storage and went out exploring. More accurately, I headed to the Gagosian Gallery (via Central Park..).

Sometimes, when expectations are very high, we set ourselves for disappointment. This was definitely NOT the case here. I headed into a spacious gallery, divided into three spaces. Black shiny marble floors, off-white walls, and the images....how can one describe the feeling of being surrounded by light? The photographs are not Sally Mann's typical Wet Plate Collodion images. Silver gelatin and a few Platinum prints. But the light, is the same light. Transcending place and time, a portrait of two artists, Cy Twombly, whose studio appears in the images and Sally Mann who created the images. Neither are with me in the room, yet somehow, both are present. I forgot about the sleepless night, the plane, the hotel. I just basked in the light. 

Remembered light, Sally Mann at the Gagosian Gallery

Another beauty from the exhibit

The name of the exhibit was inspired by Mark Strand's poem