- Dates
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Contemporary Trends: The Collection of the Musée Cantini de Marseille
The 1980s saw the emergence of often spectacular, intelligent works, as well as photography’s participation in the wider world of contemporary art through fruitful interrogations of its history and function as a producer of meaning. Jan Dibbets, Jochen Gerz, Joan Fontcuberta, Holger Trülzsch, Henry Lewis, Annette Messager and many others have worked towards altering systems of perception, producing works that have transformed traditional spaces of narration, construction, etc. Photography is a medium, a material of experience off which curious resonances bounce.
By rediscovering the classical forms of painting and building bridges between the different forms of contemporary creation, John Coplans and Suzanne Lafont have created a set of work that, through the use of complex mechanisms (frontality of the view, rigorous composition and presentation of the works), goes beyond the use of the medium and recalls the demands of a contemporary artistic practice unbounded by time.
Javier Vallhonrat, Georges Rousse or Goria share this same concern, albeit in a variety of registers, questioning art and the medium with a desire to mix practices and merge the turbulent relationships between painting and photography.
