— An Exhibition of 18 International Contemporary Photographic Artists
Curators: Cui Bo, Liu Xiaoxia, Irina Chmyreva (Russia), Thomas Kellner (Germany)
Modern photographic art frequently adopts unconventional visual languages to convey unconventionalideas or occurrences. The progress in digital technology has broadened the creative potentialities of photography, enabling artists to manipulate pixels to create surreal visual landscapes, no longer constrained by the physical limits of chemical imaging. From two-dimensional to three-dimensional, photography continues to expand the boundaries of art propelled by technological and conceptual influences.
This process of seeking breakthroughs within limitations enriches the artistic expressions of photography and provides a source of innovation for contemporary art. We see in this exhibition that Andres Wertheim employs multiple exposures to overlay dull museum artifacts with visitors, presenting the relationship between art and people while questioning the various issues surrounding the authenticity of photography. Patty Carroll reconstructs female living spaces with decorative items and everyday objects, creating chaotic scenes that challenge the hidden and overlooked roles of women in modern society. The reflection and redefinition of the essence of photography elevate it from a mere recording tool to a medium for conceptual expression, making images tangible entities.
In the post-photography era, photography has shifted from a representational system to a cognitive methodology. It is no longer merely an object to be viewed but has become an interface for visual culture reflections. From Jürgen König's homage to the classic "dining table" in photography to Elena Akoulova's exploration of photographic materials, light, and time, from Taehwan Kim's virtual spaces created with LiDAR to Bronek Kozka's "Thresholds" crafted through physical experiences and artificial intelligence, the 18 contemporary photographic artists from different countries featured in this exhibition articulate the evolution of photography as a technological and an artistic medium from diverse perspectives, reconstructing its spatial and temporal dimensions.
In the evolution of photography as a contemporary artistic language, it has constantly broken the limitations a medium and reshape simultaneously artistic logic through technological revolutions. From the physicality of silver halide grains to the virtuality of digital pixels, from debates over mechanical reproduction to breakthroughs in conceptual expression, photography has become indispensable in contemporary art when it is transformed from a "technical tool" into a "meta-language" through cycles of deconstruction and reconstruction. In this era of image saturation, photographic art has carved out a new expressive space with its unique medium qualities.