JORGE MOLDER
Algun tempo antes
Centro Galego de Arte Contemporanea
April 7 - June 4, 2007
Jorge Molder (Lisbon, 1947) is currently a standard in contemporary art, using photography as a means of expression and basing his works in self-representation. He uses images that, in addition to offering answers to those that contemplate them, launch interrogations and stimulate the reflection of the audience, who are faced with a kind of unfolding of the “I” that questions the credibility and objectivity of the photograph. Jorge Molder likes to use doubt as the premise of his work and tends towards moments of expectation as generators of intensity.
Jorge Molder does not remember what the exact reasons were that led him to pick up a photographic camera for the first time. He was an adolescent and was interested in exploring the construction of images by playing with light. Having finished his studies in Philosophy, he held his first exhibit in 1977 at the age of thirty, and since then there have been multiple opportunities to see his works in individual and group exhibitions, within his native country as well as abroad. His career reached its peak in 1999 when he was selected to represent Portugal in the Venice Biennial exhibition with thirty of the thirty-six photographs from the series Nox.
The exhibition Algun tempo antes, which we can view at the Galician Center for Contemporary Art (CGAC), shows a selection of works from the last 25 years: from three artist sketches from the series Uma exposicao, dating to 1979, to the series Condicao Humana from 2005, integrated throughout the exhibition. The techniques utilized vary from impressions in silver gelatin to digital images, with Polaroids in between, which he uses with disquieting results, as well as videographic incursions in works like Linha do Tempo (1999-2000). The exhibit creates a complete vision of the artist’s artistic territory that includes, among others, works from such significant series as the afore mentioned Nox (1999), Waiters (1986) –with 25 photographs- Secret Agent (1991), The Sense of the Sleight-of-Hand Man (1993-94), INOX (1995), and Anatomia e Boxe (1996) – a work fragmented in series which, at the same time, draw on criteria of pertinence and time, though without the pretension of creating immovable stories. The Portuguese artist lets the images be the ones to unchain new stories in the mind of the audience that stands before them.
The relationship between Jorge Molder and the self-represented Jorge Molder is strongly established; not because the artist tries to express his moods or draw a certain biography, but rather because of the relationship between what the artist wants to do and what he does. Photography drew away decades ago from a single representational concept, and Molder went from the self-portrait of the 1980s towards the fictional construction of a “halfway” identity, as he himself indicates. A novel, a painting, a dream; all these can become the inspiration for his artistic work. These series open the door to the other, all those others that live in our imagination and in our dreams. Those fictitious characters that can’t escape, however, from the creator that invented them.
Algun tempo antes amply revisits, as previously mentioned, the territory of an artist that seeks the attention and emotion of the audience. This geography of Jorge Molder, who confesses not having lived outside an urban atmosphere, and, more specifically, outside of Lisbon, expanded his horizons in Santiago de Compostela with a jump beyond the two dimensions of the photographic image, to create a work specifically for the CGAC’s Doble Espacio. In addition, the artist’s display is accompanied by a carefully created publication that includes texts from the director of the CGAC, Manuel Olveira, and critics Joao Miguel Fernandes Jorge and Aurora Garcia, as well as an interview with the artist by curator Maria do Céu Baptista.
During the month of April, with the aim of further investigating the topics associated with Jorge Molder’s work (identity, representation, pretense, etc.), the CGAC will organize a series of conferences and projects under the title Simulacros: miradas en torno a fotografia.
Centro Galego de Arte Contemporanea
Galician Center for Contemporary Art
Valle Inclan s/n - 15704 Santiago de Compostela
Galician Center for Contemporary Art
Valle Inclan s/n - 15704 Santiago de Compostela
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