NextLevel presents works by Andrz Kertész, Martina Hoogland Ivanow, John Chiara, Ronan Guillou and Hugo Aveta. From different generations and cultures, their singular work nonetheless shares several fundamental aspects: the expression of a precise and highly personal vision, the exploration of the photographic process, the application of finely honed craftsmanship in the construction of both the visual content and physical production of their photographic project.
While each artist creates a unique photographic language - only color work is presented in this selection - they share a certain timelessness, in the sense of being ‘not identified with a specific time’: while André Kertész’ Polaroids from the late 1970s are incredibly contemporary, Martina Hoogland Ivanow’s somber images bring to mind the Flemish palette yet are catapulted into today by her eery, color-drenched landscapes. John Chiara’s hand-built camera, handmade and unique prints seem to bear a response, with poetry, simplicity and traditional techniques, to the anxieties of an over-technologized and stressed society; Hugo Aveta creates dense yet shadowy images that seem to move, like an old film flickering through our mind, rerunning the subconscious vestiges of history, politics and memory.