FOURTH WORLD: CURRENT PHOTOGRAPHY FROM COLUMBIA
Opening Reception: September 10, 2015, 6 - 8 PM
Fourth World: Contemporary Photography from Colombia will highlight the work of four photographers whose images explore experiences of cultural and ideological conflict that characterize daily life in Colombia. The exhibition title, taken from a series of works by artist Jaime Ávila, suggests a geographical and social specificity that points to the urgency surrounding photography in Colombia today. Embedded in a history of social and armed conflict, ethnography, anthropology, journalism and political activism, the most compelling photography emerging from the country grapples with the weight of history, questioning its visual codes and blending them with contemporary concerns. Complex and fundamental issues such as class, identity, economic survival and a sixty-year civil war merged with illegal drug trafficking remain very much on the surface.
The photographs included in the exhibition reveal an enigmatic relationship with the 'real' world that they seem to depict. Each photograph is a translation, a distillation of reality that is complex and full of layers and can be understood as fragments containing the essence of the whole.
