Exhibitions
SELTZ welcomes Cristina de Middel's new look at African imaginaries
The artist from Alicante arrives at the Barcelona gallery as part of the Gallery Weekend.
Barcelona's new contemporary art gallery, SELTZ by Ritter Ferrer , makes its first appearance at Barcelona Gallery Weekend with a program that underlines its commitment to ambitious projects with international projection. The season begins with two outstanding exhibitions: No título , by Iván Forcadell, and Cataratas , by Cristina De Middel, one of the most influential voices in contemporary photography, which will be on view until October 25.
Cristina De Middel is a Spanish documentary photographer and artist born in Alicante in 1975, who currently divides her time between Mexico and Brazil. Her work is characterized by a deep and conceptual look at photography, where reality and fiction delicately merge. De Middel questions the boundaries between what we see and what we think we see, constructing visual narratives that challenge perception and invite the viewer to explore the complexity of the world through images that are both documentary and poetic. Her career consolidates her voice as one of the most relevant and original in international contemporary photography.
Cristina de Middel, Unknown Soldier 01, 2017.
Afronautas, This is What hatred did, Funmilayo, Midnighy at the Crossroads, Mirador
In Cataratas , Cristina De Middel explores the difficulty of seeing clearly in a world saturated with images. Like a cataract that clouds the gaze, visual excess and cultural clichés distort our perception of the world. Africa, a continent often reduced to myth and stereotype, becomes the setting where this tension becomes most palpable. The exhibition brings together five projects that, from different perspectives, question the way Africa has been represented and narrated over time, between fascination, misunderstanding and the construction of visual legends.
His images question colonial imaginaries, hegemonic media narratives and stereotypes that have historically conditioned the representation of the African continent. Far from offering definitive answers, these photographs function as fragmentary gestures, open-ended visual questions that point out the limits of our perception. The “cataract” of the title alludes to both cultural opacity and the incessant torrent of images that shapes the way we see the world. In this context, assuming these limits becomes the first step to looking—and understanding—in a different way.
Cristina de Middel, The Marassa, 2018.
Taken together, the series act as a cascade of images that simultaneously reveal and conceal, suggesting that the difficulty of understanding Africa is tied to the way we have tried to look at it. According to De Middel, accepting this limitation constitutes the first step towards new ways of perceiving and understanding the world.
