Photography exhibition grapples with philosophy of art form

Antonio Mil-Homens

A contemporary photography exhibition opened at Creative Macau – Center for Creative Industries on Wednesday night, showcasing the work of six participants who grappled with the theme of how their discipline relates to the psychology of art.

This somewhat existentialist theme attempts to rebuke – or at least address – a prevailing thought among the art world that photography is not as dynamic as painting, or other expressive art forms, because the former is mostly environment-driven. Thus many of the photography works at the exhibition were digitally or otherwise manipulated and appeared more as pieces of art than articles of documentation.

Hugo Teixeira, a photographer and artist who grew up in the Luso-American community in California, was among the exhibition participants, bringing a 2018 creation that was being shown to the public for the first time.

Titled “My Grandfather, My Father, Now Me”, his work is a series of eight framed photographs created through a wet plate collodion process, which document Teixeira’s confrontation with his family’s medical history of heart problems.

Each photograph has the artist as the principal subject, captured in a distinct 19th-century style, invoking a powerful – if unintended – “temporal connection.” The photographs are enclosed in glass frames and a heartbeat – the artist’s in fact – has been superimposed over the portraits.

“By coincidence, when I was invited to join the exhibition, I had been thinking a lot about something very personal that had happened related to my health,” he said on Wednesday night at the opening. “I wanted to capture the feeling of getting an electrocardiogram [EKG] for the first time.”

The artist explained that during his EKG experience “there was a sudden feeling of anxiety and fragility that I did not expect, and I thought I had to capture this photographically, somehow.”

Referring to the heart disease that afflicted both his grandfather and father, Teixeira says he sought to capture the moment when he was “forced to confront [his] genetic fate.”

“This series of self-portraits […] is a meditation on that fate and seeks to capture that moment of morbid epiphany and the feeling of absolute fragility which accompanied that realization.”

“I selected a 19th century process called wet plate collodion – which I have been working with for the last two years – and I thought it could be an advantage to express this idea. It’s a process that is very fragile, and [allowed] me to use the transparency in the glass.”

Another of the participating artists, Antonio Mil-Homens, a well-known photographer in Macau, is exhibiting five digital prints on canvas.

Seeking to capture the feeling of today’s downtown Macau, Mil-Homens captures the sensation of overcrowding in his series titled “Troubled Vision.” He says that his series is about the day-to-day problems that the increasing number of visitors is creating in Macau’s center.

Meanwhile, Ricardo Meireles is showing a set of four mixed-media artworks, collectively titled “Multiverse”.

Born in Portugal but having lived in Macau since 2001, the artist and architect has designed four suspended bamboo steamers with photograph- printed covers of meaningful and localized shapes and patterns, relevant to habitants of both Macau and Hong Kong.

The exhibition is open until May 19 at Creative Macau, on the ground floor of the Macau Cultural Centre Building. All of the exhibiting artworks are for sale.

Hugo Teixeira