Nnam Yllas
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?
Later, at the computer, I play with the images, until shapes, colors, and light start telling a story. Disconnected from the original meaning, can these stories be honest? Meaningful? True?
“The opposite of truth is not a lie, but a conviction” claimed the philosopher Nietzsche more than a century ago. What we see becomes increasingly less important than what we want to believe. We hear the words we are looking for regardless of what is said. Can we still tell apart facts from convictions? Do we even care?
P.S. For those of you wondering who inspired these images, just read the title backward.
