The Wayward Line - Exhibition of photography by Edgar Martins

The third photography exhibition that I saw in Paris was at the Centre Culturel Calouste Gulbenkian. Many of the exhibitions are only open in the afternoons, and this was one of the few open all day.

Edgar Martins is a young photographer who was born in Portugal, but has been based for many years in UK. The images in the exhibition were recent, selected from seven series including "A Metaphysical Survey of British Dwellings", "Reluctant Monoliths", "This is not a house", "Dwarf exoplanets and other sophisms". The notes to the exhibition state that "Martin uses photography to develop a philosophical, quasi-scientific investigation, examining various minimalist concepts of the contemporary urban landscape".

I came to these pictures from the standpoint of photography, rather than contemporary art or philosophy.

"When the light catches the shadow" series

My initial impression of the first group of pictures of the apron of an airport was that they were not photographs. The pictures were printed on large aluminium sheets with one side at least 1 metre or more. The surface of the pictures was totally matte with dense colours as if painted smoothly in acrylic paint.

These pictures were at nightime. However, there was not the slightest glimmer of light in the sky and virtually no horizon. This would be difficult to achieve by photography as there is usually some glimmer of light in the sky and total blackness would only exist in most unusual circumstances.

The main visual element in the photographs were the markings on the runways and parking areas. However, in order to achieve high saturation colours of the runway markings, I would expect that the tarmac surface would also have been illuminated to some extent. However, in the pictures, these surfaces were very dark with just the slightest hint of texture and form.

In some of the photographs, a single "spotlit" vehicle, plane or building was included in the frame, but no people or sign of human occupation.

The pictures were visually interesting because of their size and intensity of colours. Also, however, the world presented in the pictures was a "superworld". It appears to be a manipulated version of the world that we inhabit. I assume that the photographer must have used floodlighting and extensive manipulation to isolate the graphical elements that he wished to include in the final image.

"A metaphysical survey of British dwellings" series

The second series of images in the gallery were similarly unreal:-

These were again night time photographs in which a single isolated building surrounded by a pavement was floodlit as if the photographer was using studio lighting techniques. The skies were totally black.

There were traffic lights, and pedestrian crossings and street lights but not signs of human occupation. Again the road markings were brilliantly illuminated by the tarmac surfaces were unnaturally dark.

I was puzzled by the fact that the walls of the buildings were constructed of grey breezeblocks, rather than brick or stone. Reading the exhibition notes, I found out that for this series, Martins had photographed a special site used by the emergency services to train for fires and other emergencies. The world portrayed was in fact not the real world in this sequence.

"Reluctant monoliths" series

This was another series of night-time pictures with highly saturated colours. One of the most visually attractive pictures was a brightly coloured warehouse. The building was long and low and the photograph was taken square on, so that only the front elevation was visible. The visual impression was reminiscent of an "architects drawing" for a client, with dramatic use of light and colour.

The roof and some walls of the building were totally black, but the doors and surrounding panels were a variety of saturated primary colours: red, yellow and blue.

The sky and ground were totally flat black with the exception of a little texture in the foreground.

I also enjoyed a photograph of a smooth ovoid structure (which I assume was a building) in a totally dark scene. In this case the structure was a neutral off-white colour rather than brightly coloured which was softly lit from above to emphasize the rounded shape of the structure.

Conclusions

In total contrast to Bressons photographs, Edgar Martins would appear to be an artist who is using photography for his work, rather than a photographer who aims to produce artistic photographs.

I enjoyed the unreality of the world presented in these series of photographs. There were also series of pictures of planet-like spheres which I did not find as interesting. Another series was closer to photo-reportage. He had photographed houses and land in USA that had been abandoned as a result of the credit crisis. These were daylight photographs which were visually less unique than the night-time pictures noted above.

I was interested to note that Martins work was featured in a cover article in British Journal of Photography in 2008.