Antoni Arissa photography in the CCCB
The exhibition, which can be seen up until the 12th of April, espouses the figure of one of the most eminent exponents of avant-garde photography
The photographic career of Antoni Arissa (1900-1980) was as brief as it was intense but his work has, to a large extent, gone unnoticed in the world of Catalan photography. The CCCB is currently hosting an exhibition entitled Antoni Arissa. The Shadow and the Photographer, 1922-1936 in an effort to recover and espouse the figure of one of the great exponents of avant-garde photography.
A printer by trade, Arissa was one of the first artists to implement the techniques of the German Neues Sehen, or New Vision, movement of the 1920s. Closely related to the ideas of the Bauhaus movement, New Vision conceived photography as an autonomous art form and focussed on the search for both contrasts between light and shadow and original ways of framing subject matter. His work as a printer, which provided Arissa with a knowledge of typography and editorial development, led to his interest in this artistic movement and the 160 extremely elegant black and white photographs included in the exhibition are fine examples of this interplay between shadows, light, geometry and reflections.
Curated by Rafael Levenfeld and Valentin Vallhonrat, who have painstakingly recovered and restored Arissa’s work, the exhibition is divided into three sections: the costumbrist pictorialism of the period 1922 to 1928, the evolution towards Modernist techniques, and the New Vision period from 1930 to 1936. Chronologically, the exhibition spans the period from the 1920s to the Spanish Civil War, at which point Arissa abandoned photography and dedicated himself exclusively to the family printing business.
In parallel to the photographic exhibition the CCCB is also hosting an installation by Kazuhiro Goshima entitled Shadowland. One hundred years on, the short 3D film by the Japanese artist enters into a dialog with the work of Arissa through its use of light and composition.
The exhibition Antoni Arissa. The Shadow and the Photographer, 1922-1936 can be seen up until the 12th of April, 2015. Entry is priced at 6 € and more information is available here.