Gabor Szilasi: ‘I always photograph in the present. By this I don’t mean literally, because obviously that is all that photography can do, but rather, that I am interested only in the present. When I went to Charlevoix I photographed a lot of old people. Not because of memory or because I wanted to make a statement about the past or what was about to be lost, just more generally because they were there in the present. When I photograph an old person or an old building, however, I feel and know that it will be very valuable in fifty or a hundred years because everything changes constantly. People are born and die. Buildings are built, demolished.’
Jon Rafman: ‘Google Maps and Street View alter our conception of space and even how we remember certain locations. Just as the automobile and airplanes have changed our conception of space and distances, so has Google in a totally different way. Today we live in a world where everything is recorded, but no particular significance is accorded to anything. We want to matter and we want to matter to somebody but loneliness and anonymity is often our plight.’
Gabor Szilasi, Elk Club, Val d’Or, Abitibi 1977 gelatin silver print signed, 8.1 x 10.2” (sight) on 11 x 14”
Jon Rafman, Conzelman Rd, Sausalito, CA, USA 2010 inkjet print on photo paper, 22 x 34”
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Gabor Szilasi, Rouyn Noranda, Québec 1977 gelatin silver print signed, 8.9 x 13.4” (sight) on 11 x 14”
Jon Rafman, Near Calle del Puerto de Navacerrada, Arroyomolinos, España 2009 inkjet print on photo paper, 22 x 34”
Jon Rafman: ‘My collections of Street Views reflect back to viewers their own modern condition in relation to it: disconnected from nature, drowning in the ongoing accumulation of digital noise. As this detached, indifferent mode of recording often parallels our own mode of perceiving the world, by framing and reframing the images, I hope to undo familiar conventions of seeing the world, and highlight this sense of human disconnection.’
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