Adrià Julià
Barcelona, Spain, 1974
Exercise for an Overexposed Landscape #1, 2017
Photographic paper, metal frame, cylinders and motor
254 x 147,5 x 64 cm
Unique
Acquired 2018

Photography, video and film are the core media Adrià Julià employs to investigate the status of the image in our contemporary culture. He focuses both on the subject of the image and the way it is produced, reflecting as much upon the importance of the point of view as the technology used to produce it – both significantly affecting one’s comprehension of the image.

This particular work relates to his discovery of Hercule Florence, an artist and explorer who somehow invented the concept of photographic paper – and invented the term “photography”.

In 2016, Adrià Julià went to the rainforest and meticulously re-enacted Hercule Florence’s experiment. He then conceived a mechanical structure to present the large-scale, camera-less photograph, setting it as a loop on a set of moving tubes. The time of its complete revolution equates the time during which the paper was exposed to create the image. This perpetual motion therefore refers to the movement of the planet, as much as it does to the notion of the moving image, which is core to cinema.