Art

These are some of the questions that visitors to the Cazadores de sombras (shadow hunters) exhibition are prompted to ask themselves; the exhibition is currently on show at Panama’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC) until January. On show are 80 works by 16 Spanish photographers, brought together by curator Rosa Olivares, who took on the job of mounting the exhibition under the auspices of the 2007 Photography Biennale that took place in Bogota, and to which Spain was invited as a special guest.

Olivares had a basic concept in mind: photography deals with feelings and ideas, and is not necessarily constrained by reality. This principle applies at least to photography as an art form, which goes much further than news and documentary photography, and does not deal with life as it is, but as it is interpreted by the artist behind the camera lens.

Following this theme, the artists invited to participate in this exhibition are not interested in recording actual objects in front of them, but by the fantastic shadows cast by them. They track them down, chase them and finally manage to capture them in a static image that endures over time. The act of capturing these images brings out the hunter in them, and the images in the exhibition allow them to present their ‘prey’ for the benefit of the spectators, so that they in turn can embrace and interpret the images from their own point of view.

Given the ethereal nature of these images, the exhibition allows themes to be created out of shadows that are not easy to describe in words. The photographers portray feelings such as fear, loneliness and doubt, all of which inhabit this shadowy world that surrounds us human beings.

Some famous names from the world of Spanish photography are taking part in this exhibition. One of these is Mario de Ayguavives, an artist who has concentrated on analyzing and portraying through his work the modern world’s obsession with perfection. And he does this through manipulating images using cutting edge techniques, so that objects appear perfectly aligned, strangely precise.

Alongside Ayguavives is the work of the Valencian photographer Sergio Belinchón, whose work is currently on show at the Queen Sofia National Museum and Art Center and has just mounted a joint exhibition of the works of Spanish works in Berlin. The work of Tomy Ceballos is also on display, an artist whose work is much closer to the abstract and who creates his images using fragments taken from reality.

Javier Codesal on the other hand is both photographer and poet, which combination influences his work to a great extent. He expresses his art not just through the static lens, but also through video and installations. His work is joined by that of Manuel Esclusa, one of the group’s veterans, a native of Barcelona to his fingertips, and photography is in his genes. He began his career at the tender age of 8 in the family photography studio, and since then has developed his work through all the various techniques and expressions of art. Since 1979 his work has focused on the night, and more recently he has been working on an even more novel artistic expression: self portraits of the inside of his own body.

The female sex is represented in the works of Amparo Garrido, that force the spectator to consider the continual clashes between the wild facets of life and its civilized aspects, highlighting the fact that, despite all attempts to the contrary, the one cannot survive without the other. Begoña Montalbán builds on her nursing training as she uses her images to portray reflections on the body, pain, sickness and therapeutic interventions to alleviate suffering. The work of Anna Malagrida follows these same lines to a disturbing extent, forcing the observer to face one of the great contradictions of our time: the lack of communication between people, in this age of communication.

This is just a brief glimpse of what visitors to the Shadow Hunters exhibition will find, hosted by the Spanish Government’s Society for Overseas Cultural Activities, in collaboration with the Spanish Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Culture, the Spanish Embassy in Panama and MAC. This is the perfect opportunity not only to appreciate a new dimension in the art of photography, but also to dare to interpret reality, our own reality, in a different way.