NEW WORK HAMBURG
Apr 11 – May 24, 2008
aplanat Galerie für Photography, Hamburg, DE
During the 4. Triennale der Photographie in Hamburg the aplanat galerie fur fotografie presents new work by the American Artist Jay Mark Johnson. This is already the second exhibition after the worldpremiere "Motion Studies" in January 2007, which was followed by successful exhibitions in Berlin, Cetona (Italy) und Los Angeles. The exhibited works were all created in Hamburg in February 2008.
The hybrid combination of spatial and temporal dimensions creates images that seem both strange and familiar.
They not only pique our curiosity but also question our normal mechanisms of perception. Although Johnson's images allude to art historical precursors - above all the chronophotographic studies of movement of the late 19th century (Eadweard Muybridge, Étienne Jules Marey, Albert Londe et al.), as well as the works of Italian Futurism - he goes beyond these in methodology. In a process developed by the artist himself, he employs a specially modified camera. While the images retain a spatial dimension in their vertical axis, the horizontal axis is dedicated to a depiction of the passage of time. The camera thus produces an image flowing evenly from left to right. Although the picture is created digitally, it is not digitally manipulated. Rather it is a true indexical recording of a concrete movement.