José María Álvarez
29 Nov 2016 - 05 Feb 2017
JOSÉ MARÍA ÁLVAREZ
Bilbao Mendi Film Festival 2016
29 November 2016 – 05 February 2017
Within the IX edition of the Bilbao Mendi Film Festival Sala Rekalde presents the exhibition Olas de hielo of José María Álvarez (El Bierzo, León, 1955).
Attracted by the Icelandic landscape, in July 2002, J.M. Álvarez crossed the Mýrdalsjökull and Vatnajökull glaciers, situated in the south of the island. Shocked by the amazement that he felt when he saw these ice fields for the first time, with ”a tranquillity mixed with terror" (Edmund Burke), he embarked on this photography project.
Rather than the immensity and hugeness of the forms, Álvarez fosters the serenity of contemplations and focuses on the details of the ruggedness of the relief caused by lateral moraines, on the glacial telluric structure and force. He photographs the silence of the material and proposes an intellectual approach that contrasts with the proliferation, dissemination, transformation and mutation of contemporary images.
In these mountain photographs and in his work in general, the artist seeks to capture the sobriety of the single shot and the lack of subsequent intervention. Exclusively using traditional photography and ensuring the mastery of the photographic process through his self-sufficient craft, his photos in this project have been constructed using black and white experimental techniques and the Ilfochrome positive-positive colour system (previously Cibachrome).
Fourteen years on, J.M. Álvarez has produced copies of those images for the 9th Bilbao Mendi Film Festival. Thus, Olas de hielo, from the recent gaze of a past experience, has turned this Icelandic territory into a personal introspection and the conquest of his own inner territory. This new approach ideally mixes form and spirit, artistic research and his personal history.
The unity and harmony of these images show the presence and knowledge of those ice landscapes, now converted into an aesthetical discovery, into landscape of the sensitive approach that we must contemplate from eyes of plenty.
THE ARTIST
José María Álvarez (El Bierzo, 1955) lives and works in Bilbao. He has a PhD in Fine Arts from the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU, 1996) and coordinates his creative projects with teaching photography.
He initially studied sculpture and he abandoned the Land Art movement in 1992 and turned his sights on traditional photography. The photos that precisely capture his international career are to be found in the Poéticas del paisaje trilogy published by Bassarai Ediciones: Itxina. Paisajes de Luz (2004), Flysch. La orilla devuelta (2006) and Faber (2009).
His works are a reflection of the natural environment, territory and human actions, as see in his recent projects: Formas agrarias en Tierra de Campos, a travelling exhibition in Castilla y León; The Wounded Land (Photomuseum, Zarautz); Another Meeting Place (Grajal de Campos Palace, León); Drawing the World, a City Views collective exhibition (Canal Isabel II, Madrid) and Faber (CDAN –Art and Nature Centre-, Huesca) His latest work, Valdemorco Lagoon, was exhibited at the Díaz Caneja Foundation in Palencia.
Bilbao Mendi Film Festival 2016
29 November 2016 – 05 February 2017
Within the IX edition of the Bilbao Mendi Film Festival Sala Rekalde presents the exhibition Olas de hielo of José María Álvarez (El Bierzo, León, 1955).
Attracted by the Icelandic landscape, in July 2002, J.M. Álvarez crossed the Mýrdalsjökull and Vatnajökull glaciers, situated in the south of the island. Shocked by the amazement that he felt when he saw these ice fields for the first time, with ”a tranquillity mixed with terror" (Edmund Burke), he embarked on this photography project.
Rather than the immensity and hugeness of the forms, Álvarez fosters the serenity of contemplations and focuses on the details of the ruggedness of the relief caused by lateral moraines, on the glacial telluric structure and force. He photographs the silence of the material and proposes an intellectual approach that contrasts with the proliferation, dissemination, transformation and mutation of contemporary images.
In these mountain photographs and in his work in general, the artist seeks to capture the sobriety of the single shot and the lack of subsequent intervention. Exclusively using traditional photography and ensuring the mastery of the photographic process through his self-sufficient craft, his photos in this project have been constructed using black and white experimental techniques and the Ilfochrome positive-positive colour system (previously Cibachrome).
Fourteen years on, J.M. Álvarez has produced copies of those images for the 9th Bilbao Mendi Film Festival. Thus, Olas de hielo, from the recent gaze of a past experience, has turned this Icelandic territory into a personal introspection and the conquest of his own inner territory. This new approach ideally mixes form and spirit, artistic research and his personal history.
The unity and harmony of these images show the presence and knowledge of those ice landscapes, now converted into an aesthetical discovery, into landscape of the sensitive approach that we must contemplate from eyes of plenty.
THE ARTIST
José María Álvarez (El Bierzo, 1955) lives and works in Bilbao. He has a PhD in Fine Arts from the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU, 1996) and coordinates his creative projects with teaching photography.
He initially studied sculpture and he abandoned the Land Art movement in 1992 and turned his sights on traditional photography. The photos that precisely capture his international career are to be found in the Poéticas del paisaje trilogy published by Bassarai Ediciones: Itxina. Paisajes de Luz (2004), Flysch. La orilla devuelta (2006) and Faber (2009).
His works are a reflection of the natural environment, territory and human actions, as see in his recent projects: Formas agrarias en Tierra de Campos, a travelling exhibition in Castilla y León; The Wounded Land (Photomuseum, Zarautz); Another Meeting Place (Grajal de Campos Palace, León); Drawing the World, a City Views collective exhibition (Canal Isabel II, Madrid) and Faber (CDAN –Art and Nature Centre-, Huesca) His latest work, Valdemorco Lagoon, was exhibited at the Díaz Caneja Foundation in Palencia.