Postmodernity, with the end of meta-narratives and absolute truths, with deconstruction, the multiplicity of voices and globalization, has left us submerged in the loneliness of contemporary life. In my series of photographs called Nobody II, I capture this feeling of remoteness. The world moves at full speed, but we are submerged in absence.
I have captured these images in Colombia and around the world. They are made “in situ”. They appear with their emotional charge and I am fortunate to have my camera in my hand to be able to photograph them. My photographs suggest a feeling of nostalgia and melancholy inducing to an intimate interaction between the observer and the world. The constant in each of them is the absence of people. An uncomfortable absence because they are ideal places for a meeting, but there is no one.
In these images, perspective and light are the true protagonists. There is an inherent evocation in the composition of each one of them that awakens in the viewer a subtle and delicate charm towards vacuity.
Just as beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, so is loneliness seen, or rather, felt.
Nobody is a black and white photographic series. Some photos are romantic, others are charged with emotional content, others are imposing and others are beautiful in their simplicity. All these places captured in my art work have the magic to be enjoyed in company, but what is really sublime is their loneliness. A loneliness that discomforts, that overwhelms the heart and in some other way enlarges the soul and feeds the dreams. Nobody is about absence, and jet predisposes us to dream of company.
Nadie is a play about loneliness that predisposes us to dream of company.
The adhesive vinyl print on glass and its wooden box frame give the montage a sense of depth. The images seem to jump out of the frame to touch the viewer.
Marcela Bellini
After its invention in the 19th century, photography began to align itself with different arguments; in its early days, it seemed that its primary purpose was to document. However, the images themselves began to take on a life and independence of their own, and many photographer-artists sought to transcend mere capture, initiating various reflections on what the camera had achieved. Intentions began to find meanings, allowing photographs to surpass their own conditions, guiding them toward deeper states of thought and consciousness.
Initially, photography was in black and white or sepia. When color development techniques emerged, many photographers believed that black-and-white images were more powerful, capturing the interplay of light and shadow more effectively. Photographers who embraced color from the outset had to grapple with it, reflecting on its usage to ensure it functioned within the parameters of meaning and significance.
Photography aspires to convey ideas that challenge the very images presented. Emotional weight and intent will determine the final outcome, freeing the images from any notion of innocence. In this endeavor, many artists have used the camera to express their thoughts and arguments with the same potency as any other visual medium—painting, drawing, video, installations, performance. Artists who have used photography have worked to elevate the medium, positioning it as one of the most powerful forms of expression.
Today, we are presented with a series of large-format black-and-white photographs that, under the theme of absence, offer us architectural spaces traditionally used for public gatherings. What Marcela Bellini aims to provoke by capturing these spaces devoid of human presence is a metaphysical reflection that includes exclusion and emptiness as values to be reconsidered.
The photographs reveal tea rooms, metro stations, bullrings, buildings with windows, rural roads, beaches, cemeteries—captured in various locations around the world—all entirely empty, absent of the people who usually inhabit and traverse these spaces daily. This absence forces us to focus more intently on these settings, drawing our attention to their architecture or landscape offerings. These diverse places reveal their own inherent laws and allow us to see their physical characteristics more clearly.
Marcela Bellini has concentrated her interest on these solitary spaces, and by bringing them together as a series, she seeks to generate allegories that speak of absence, solitude, and nostalgia as a means of evoking intimate feelings.
Miguel González
Curator
September 2015
