Noticias
50 pictures from 12 different photographers
Prix Pictet Prize finalists´ works on display at MAM
March 02, 2018Images that address issues related to overpopulation, territorial disputes, migration, the coexistence of humanity with nature, outer space and the impact of pollution on the oceans, make up the exhibition Space.
To be on display from March 2 to April 22 at the Museum of Modern Art (MAM, for its acronym in Spanish), the exhibition presents the work of 12 international photographers who were finalists in the seventh Prix Pictet Award: Richard Mosse, Mandi Barker, Saskia Groneberg, Thomas Ruff, Michael Wolf, Beate Gütschow, Rinko Kawauchi, Sohei Nishino, Munem Wasif, Sergey Ponomarev, Pavel Wolberg and Benny Lam.
The award, created in 2008 by the Pictet Group, the world's largest group dedicated to photography and sustainability, aims to harness the power of photography to draw global attention to society and environmental problems, explained Fariba Farshad, director of the award.
She said that the works of the participating artists were selected from a network of 296 nominations from different parts of the world, addressing the space. She reminded that from 2008 to 2018, nearly 80 exhibitions have been held in over 60 cities in different venues.
In her speech, the director of the MAM, Sylvia Navarrete, said that this is the second time that an exhibition of the Prix Pictet Award has arrived in Mexico. The first one was the exhibition Consumption that was hosted at the Museo Nacional de Arte (Munal) in 2015.
She said that Space is a disturbing and ambiguous exhibition that on the one hand is testimonial and shocking, but on the other hand has a poetic aspect with the intention of transforming terrible realities.
“The images show the war between Israel-Palestine, Russia and Ukraine, migration, overpopulation, environmental pollution and natural disasters linked to climate change”.
“Photographers from the UK, Germany, Japan, Hong Kong, Ireland, Russia and Bangladesh portrayed how the planet is being wiped out and how we need to become aware of it in order to have a different life to say no to waste and yes to sustainability”, she said.
The exhibition opens with the winning project Heat Maps by the Irish Richard Mosse, who documents refugee camps in Europe.
Fariba Farshad said that the images were captured by a military-grade thermal camera that can detect human heat 30 kilometers away, revealing details of life in these fields.
One of the works exhibited is Tokio Compression by Michael Wolf, who transports the spectator to the full capacity of the Japanese trains. “Wolf spent more than 60 mornings at railway stations, photographing passengers on their daily trip to Tokyo”.
Wolf said that crowded trains arrive at the stations, that people are pushed to enter, a suffering that is endured by thousands of people because their homes are located hours away, since living in Tokyo is a luxury, Farshad said.
Other of the photographs that the director of the award highlighted was Büropflanze (office floor) by Saskia Groneberg, a reflection on office workspaces, as well as Subdivided apartments by Benny Lam (Hong Kong), who shows the problems of human slums and inadequate housing conditions in Hong Kong, where families live in 3.8 square meters spaces.
The public can also see Barricades by Pavel Wolberg, whose work focuses on the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian and Russia-Ukraine conflicts. “The series shows barricades and dividing walls, separation walls and improvised borders. It's an investigation into how landscape and urban spaces are transformed during territorial disputes”, Farshad said.
Another project that portrays the issue of migration is Migration Crisis in Europe by Sergey Ponomarev, who captured the long and dangerous route that thousands of civilians in the Middle East and Africa have been forced to take for fear of war.
After its exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the exhibition Space has been presented in Moscow, Russia, Stuttgard, Germany, and now Mexico, then will travel to the cities of Brussels, Turin and New York.
“The exhibition will be housed in the MAM because it is a suitable venue thanks to its exceptional photographic heritage, national and international, modern and contemporary and we suffer some of the problems presented, such as urban overcrowding, migration and pollution”, said Sylvia Navarrete.
The photographic exhibition Space will be open from March 2 to April 22 at the Museum of Modern Art, located at the Paseo de la Reforma and Gandhi s/n. From Tuesday to Sunday from 10 am to 17 pm. General ticket 65$. Sundays, free entry.
Mexico,Distrito Federal
