Alfred Stieglitz, Old and New New York, 1911.

André Kertesz, Sidewalk, Paris, 1925 © FotoMuseum Antwerpen.

Léon Sneyers (be, 1877-1949), L'Effort, 1901 platinumdruk.

Centre for Fine Arts,
Brussels
Rue Ravensteinstraat 23
02 507 82 00
Brussels
The Unreal Image:
Emblems, Symbols
and Metaphors
January 24-March 30, 2008

The Unreal Image presents some 70 photographs which, rather than setting out to record events and situations, provide an ideal, poetical and philosophical view of man and society. The exhibition covers a number of movements, including surrealism, pictorialism, subjective photography and analytical photography.

One of the first photographers to thoroughly explore the visual possibilities of the new medium was the 'co-inventor' of photography, William Henry Fox Talbot. He soon became aware of the ambiguity of photography: on the one hand photographs are a true representation of an anecdotal reality, but at the same time they are also part of a wider visual culture. Consequently, they can develop into metaphoric, symbolic or even allegorical representations whose subject matter is only revealed on closer consideration. Thus, despite their chiefly documentary character, even nineteenth-century photographs often express musings about time and transience, about tradition and innovation and about the validity of norms and values.

With the international stylistic movement of pictorialism, of which Gustave Marissiaux, Alexandre and Leonard Misonne were the most important representatives here in Belgium, photography was influenced by symbolism in literature and painting. By now photography was demanding recognition as a fully-fledged artistic medium.

Alfred Stieglitz was the most prominent representative of pictorialism in the United States of America. He is known for his photographs which rather than depict reality, evoke atmospheres and emotions. In the United States Stieglitz's ”Equivalents” photography exerted a tremendous influence and it can still be felt today.

In Europe, too, a new type of photography developed which was related through the plastic arts to constructivism and utopian socialism. Photographers started to experiment with a whole variety of abstractions, geometricizing compositions and unexpected perspectives. In his photograms Moholy-Nagy even went so far as to exclude all reference to an external reality. The tension in these images lies in the gap that is created between the recognition of a familiar reality and the confrontation with the wilful, disquieting way that reality is converted into 'image'.

Another form of 'unreal' photography was surrealist photography. It negated the naive idea of an objective truth and revealed other meanings from the deeper layers of our consciousness.

In his desire to distance himself from both cheap aestheticism and all forms of functionalism, after the Second World War Otto Steinert became the self-appointed spokesman of a new generation. Using the term ‘subjective photography’ he called upon photographers to provide a subjective view of the world and of their fellow men. The most important representatives of subjective photography in Belgium include Julien Coulommier, Antoon Dries, Serge Vandercam, Gilbert de Keyser, Robert Besard and Marcel Permantier.

This stance slowly evolved into analytical photography, an examination of the parameters that determine photographic imaging and its perception. Artists involved in fields like conceptual art, land art and performance increasingly turned to photographic images to document their concepts, projects and interventions. Reflection on the questionable objectivity or reliability of this documentation was an integral part of the work of some of these artists.

The artists featured include: Charles Nègre, Achille Quinet, Julia Margareth Cameron, Henry Peach Robinson, James Craig Annan, Fernand Khnopff, Léon Bovier, Léon Snyers, Léonard Misonne, Pierre Dubreuil, Georges H. Seeley, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Edward Steichen, Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Weston, Alexander Rodchenko, André Kertesz, Man Ray, Wols, Raoul Ubac, Piet Spoor, Manuel Alvarez-Bravo, Serge Vandercam, László Moholy-Nagy, Aaron Siskind, Minor White, Paul Caponigro, Julien Coulommier, Antoon Dries, Jeffrey Silverthorne, Floris Neususs and John Baldessari.