Nir Evron and Miki Kratsman at the exhibition “Image Anxiety”

part of PhotoEspana – International Festival of photography and visual arts, Madrid

04.06.12-22.07.12
Curator: Huang Du

Nir Evron, Still from Fabric, 2011, S16mm film projection, 5min 12sec, Silent

Miki Kratsman, IMG_2213 From the Archive, (undated), digital print

Globalisation, in transcending national boundaries, has given rise to a process of restructuring based on economic needs and political interests. This discourse has sharpened conflicts, highlighting the gulf between rich and poor, the tension between globalisation and nationalism, between centre and periphery. In the information age, the production and processing of information has exerted enormous psychological pressure on the people, influencing their lifestyle, and on governments, reshaping their laws and undermining their very viability.

This exhibition, curated by Huang Du, explores from a rational standpoint the anxiety caused by images, an anxiety seen as a psychological activity prompted by external pressure. Visual anxiety is not hard to find: man has increasingly been influenced, controlled or invaded by images. This issue brings together works by 14 artists from Italy, Germany, Taiwan, Israel, Korea, China, Israel, Australia and Switzerland, almost all produced between 2005 and 2011. Anxiety is being heightened by radical social change, by the instability of the state, by ignorance of social development, by lack of faith, by the clash between tradition and modernism and by ever-expanding materialism. The work selected for this show – five installations and audiovisual projects and nine photographic series – reflect and respond to these issues.