Much has been said about the ability of photography to keep memories alive and tame the passage of time. We know that photography generates knowledge and constitutes an artistic expression tool to boost experiences in which sensitivity recognizes something meaningful. At the same time, it perpetuates the alchemical wonder that originated it.
This exhibition brought together diverse images that constitute a powerful and endearing dimension of echoes and resonances of vital processes. A display of ingenious mechanisms and devices to play with light and apprehend images; a sample of portraits, memories of people, evocation of situations, affections, trades, transgressions, tastes; photographs remind us of historical events, breakthroughs and extraordinary characters; they show places and architecture as fragments of life, travel, activities, ties: everything that makes it possible to imagine beyond one´s everyday routine.
Because of its ability to present a faithful reproduction of reality, photography has had a huge diversity of uses. Some of these uses fulfill an aesthetic purpose, others have a social, scientific, practical and even judicial intention. Photography has been an instrument for personal identification, journalism, documentation, spatial recognition and even espionage. Thanks to its multiple functions, the photographic act has had an enormous impact on the different ways to understand and represent the world, and on the transformation of many established concepts.
The photographs in this exhibition came in dialogue with objects from other collections from the MODO archive, in which posters, advertisements, packaging and accessories make evident the use of photography in daily life, design and advertising. A rich selection of cameras from the first models of the 19th century, to those we use today, also participate in this dialogue.
Technological advances have allowed photography, an extraordinary innovation in its time, to be perceived today as something unremarkable, available to millions of people who carry a smartphone in their pockets, who instantly share experiences, findings or moments.
The exhibition was presented from November 26, 2014 to March 30, 2015.