NATIONAL CENTER OF PHOTOGRAPHY AND IMAGES-Past Exhibitions

The Eye of Abstraction

2023-03-18 ~ 2023-07-30

National Center of Photography and Images, Taipei Galleries 301-303, 305

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Curator(s)

CHANG Kuang-Ho

Supervisor

Ministry of Culture

Organizer

National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts

National Center of Photography and Images

Exhibition Overview

Curator / CHANG Kuang-Ho

Susan Sontag said, “For it is in the nature of a photograph that it can never entirely transcend its subject, as a painting can. Nor can a photograph ever transcend the visual itself, which is in some sense the ultimate aim of modernist painting.” Breaking away from its reliance on identifiable visual signs, the readable perspective that abstract photography carries is the eye of abstraction we are looking for in the mirror.

The Eye of Abstraction wishes to look into the rationality and possibilities through the 4 subthemes, namely 1.“Figurative and Non-Figurative”: Without familiar or commonplace elements in figurative narrative, photography became abstract. And in the obscure clues of narrative, a heroic way of seeing emerges and is praised, inspiring the reading of abstract photography; 2.“Sense and Sensibility”: Repeating the path of abstract painting that colors and forms are concepts, there are rich thoughts regarding whether abstraction is the extreme beauty of rationality or the concern of sensibility. In the abstruse ambiance, whether the authors are restrained or relaxing is detectable through the exploration of their mindscape, either in painting or in photography; 3.“Gestalt”: Ideas of the “visual field” from Gestalt Psychology contend that human cognition of images is the organization of perception, instead of the assembly of individual recognitions. Through the law of proximity, law of similarity, law of closure, law of continuity, and law of symmetry, among other very exciting cognitive processes, viewers seek the meanings of signs in non-signs, they project their gestalt visions on works and experience the fun of reading images. 4.“Material Mediums”: The presentation of photography relies on photo papers, films, developer, or digital technology, among other mediums. And as technology advances, the mediums change. A system of objects is given birth by photographic materials, which carry out the endless energy of abstract virtuality. Abstract photography began with the discovery of the unusual interests in the properties of its materials.

The curatorial agenda of The Eye of Abstraction is to clarify that the lens of photography is not only applied for documenting or reporting reality, or recording life, it also could express the visual forms of the photographer's murmurs or shouts. It leads us to a new perspective. The Eye of Abstraction ambiguously carries a reminder of self-awareness of the extraordinary perspective of the author as an audience.

Exhibition Themes

Figurative and Non-Figurative
Figurative and Non-Figurative
According to Susan Sontag, photographers are not only representing the world as the world appears, but should stimulate interests with new visual judgment. Thus “photographic seeing” means to discover beauty that “everybody sees but neglects as too ordinary.” “Figurative and Non-Figurative” suggests to find the interests of the figurative in the non-figurative, find implication behind ordinary visions.
Sense and Sensibility
Sense and Sensibility
John Berger said, “A photograph, whilst recording what has been seen, always and by its nature refers to what is not seen. It isolates, preserves and presents a moment taken from a continuum. The power of a painting depends upon its internal references. Its reference to the natural world beyond the limits of the painted surface is never direct; it deals in equivalents. Or, to put it another way: painting interprets the world, translating it into its own language. But photography has no language of its own. One learns to read photographs as one learns to read footprints or cardiograms. The language in which photography deals is the language of events. All its references are external to itself. Hence the continuum.” Watching abstract photography, we are responded to by the fragmental images, rationally and sensibly.
Gestalt
Gestalt
Influenced by the discoveries of electromagnetism and the gravitational field in the 19th century, Gestalt Psychology assumed that in human perception there was a “visual field”. It claimed that human’s understanding of any visual figure, its form or profile, came from the organization of our cognitive system; they were not collections of individual parts. When we see a rose, we see its form and color, and together with what we have learned or experienced about roses previously, our feelings about it become a “field”.
Material Mediums
Material Mediums
Photography's system of objects changes as technology advances. It consists of traditional silver halide photography and digital photography. And in the category of traditional photography there are black-and-white or color films. The combinations of different developing skills or developers applied in the dark rooms produce all kinds of effects. And in the category of digital photography, the monitors presenting the images, network transmission, softwares, layouts, among other tools for various unusual visual works are also a part of the system. “Photograms” were created right after photography was invented. Carefully considering the principles of photography, we realize that images are produced by the substances of imaging and the source of imaging. Films and photo papers are substances of imaging, and the objects to be projected and light are the source of imaging. Photosensitive substances receive messages from the source and formulate images. These ideas have pushed the material mediums of abstract photography to the extreme.