Day & Night Projects
Images courtesy of Day & Night Projects and Carlos Nuñez
Atlanta Art Week Event:
Carlos Nuñez: Conduits and Patinas | Downtown
Sunday, October 8, 2023 | 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
About:
Carlos Nuñez is a Venezuelan artist living and working in New York City. His work addresses historical networks of power and their impact on ubiquity. Through observation and research, Nuñez weaves speculative narratives that retrace and unveil systems of oppression. His work spans photography, mixed media, printmaking, and sculpture, aiming to reshape social structures and bring visibility to natural and political forces in the world.
Conduits and Patinas explore the photographic medium's power dynamics and violent nature. Following the rituals and actions found in photography, this project breaks down its mechanics to reveal the active and reactive elements within.
The investigation originated because of the moral inability to make new photographs. Pointing, capturing, framing, and enlarging are power-forward actions prone to violating the subject in front of the lens. This approach resulted in the search for inhabited locations where the camera couldn't overpower a subject and the discovery of the European Water Chestnut (trapa natans) seeds.
The European Water Chestnut is an invasive species affecting North American bodies of water. The plant’s seeds stick to the soil with their sharp spines while the stem and leaves reach for the exterior, creating dense rosette mats that cover the water surface. These mats block the sunlight and endanger species that live underneath; characteristics similar to the camera: obstructing and distorting light to alter the elements and beings around it.
To accentuate the similar characteristics of both plant and camera, the seeds and other materials found adjacently are used to intervene in the inside of the camera bellows. The locations where the plant is found are photographed while obscured by its own invader. The results are abstract images that highlight the film’s role as a light receiver, while the image that wants to be revealed is restricted.
As the project evolved, the relationship between both the plant and the camera materialized through light. The plant’s capacity to block light in nature matches the techniques used to make photograms, reconstructing the plant’s obstructions on photographic paper. Merging traditionally exposed images and other violent materials within the photograms creates uncertain compositions that blur the power dynamics in the scene.
Deconstructing photography starts with its methods of use, both in machinery and action. The independently violent characteristics of the medium call for a new approach to it, maybe anon-human or decentralized form of image-making without the duality of the violator and violated. This idea of a new, non-human medium and the biological characteristics of the plant,resulted in the creation of hybrid creatures that question the dual dynamic, being both active and passive, receptor and effector, natural and industrial. These beings, made primarily from urinal mats and European Water Chestnuts become the habitants of this new, idyllic photographic reality.
About Day & Night Projects: Day & Night Projects is an artist-run gallery near downtown Atlanta. We aim to provide opportunities for artists to exhibit in a non-commercial setting, to become a nexus for the Atlanta artist community, and to exchange exhibitions with galleries around the world.
www.daynightprojects.art | @daynightprojects
Hours of Operation:
Friday: 12:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Saturday: 12:00 PM – 5:00 PM