HIGH TIDE - Alejandro Chaskielberg

Thursday 8th September - Saturday 1st October 2011
Private View - Wednesday 7th September, 7pm - 9pm


Michael Hoppen Contemporary is delighted to announce HIGH TIDE, an exhibition of new work by Argentinean photographer Alejandro Chaskielberg, overall winner of this year's Sony World Photo Awards. HIGH TIDE is a series of colour photographs taken in the remote Paraná River Delta, Argentina, where Chaskielberg lived and worked from 2007 - 2010. His subjects are local residents of this isolated community who rely on the river for food, work, travel and communication with the wider world. His portraits are ethereal, dreamlike images that convey the everyday life of those photographed - lumberjacks shifting heavy timber, an aged hunter sitting by an open fire in contemplation, lovers walking under the stars.
Working at night under a full moon, Chaskielberg documents the relationship between the inhabitants of the delta and their environment in startling technicolour, using techniques that push the boundaries of the medium to transform our natural perception of light, colour and space, whilst still referencing the aesthetic of nineteenth century photographic portraiture.

Chaskielberg requires his subjects to pose still for up to 10 minutes in order to distinguish the image from the thick darkness, relying on the natural light from the moon and supplementing this with a variety of artificial lighting tools - torches, flashes and lanterns, creating imaginary scenarios with real people and situations.
"My intention is to use photography to occupy a border between document and fiction and imbue the islanders with a strange timelessness. Photography can transform reality and produce a magical view of people and of life."
This will be the first solo exhibition by the artist in Europe. We will be celebrating his success at the Sony World Photo Awards as well as the release of La Creciente, a monograph of Chaskielberg's photographs newly published by Nazraeli Press.
Alejandro Chaskielberg (b. 1977) is the winner of the 2011 L'Iris d'Or at the Sony World Photo Awards. In 2010 he exhibited at the Brighton Photo Biennale and in 2009 he was the recipient of the BURN online magazine Emerging Photographer Grant supported by the Magnum Foundation. In the same year he won the Talent Latent as part of Spain's SCAN'09 Festival, as well as the Leopold Godowsky Jr. Award. In 2008 he was invited to participate in the National Geographic All Roads Photography Program.
Alejandro Chaskielberg trained as a film-maker and began his career as a photojournalist, working in local newspapers and magazines. He continues to direct documentaries, play the violin, and this year will sail the entire course of the 1,600 mile Paraná River single handed.