The three photographic essays: Beirut Walls (2002-2004), Buenos Aires Walls (2007-2009) and “Monumentos a la Deriva” (2013-2014), are for me three complementary sides of the diverse societal mix, Lebanon and Argentina, in which I live.
The decision to capture “Monumentos a la Deriva” was triggered by the birth of my son;
as a child, I used to contemplate with my mother the “Mer de Glace” (Ice Sea); a Glacier that layed right in front of our eyes as we sat on the porch of my paternal family’s house in Chamonix (French Alps), imagining in it all sorts of streets, houses islands, icebergs as the light would sculpt and color the ice formations of the glacier above.
I have mixed Lebanese, French, Belgian and Italian origins at the level of my grand parents: my French Grand Father had been a well known alpinist, member of the french expeditions in the Himalayas in 1936 and 1958 and the glacier above Chamonix had always been considered to be there as a training ground for the new generations of alpinists. Suddenly in the 1990s, this glacier retreated, the streets I envisioned while chatting with my mother were not anymore and my mother had passed away.
Thankfully, I still had my mother’s paintings of these ice formations and colors as proof of this moment.
There is a very strong bond between the Argentine and the Antarctic. First of all, the Antarctic Peninsula is drawn on the back of all Argentine Passports and equals in drawing importance the mainland. The Argentine bases on the Antarctic continent are the only ones inhabited by families, and all matters pertaining to the white continent are prime news there.
I was on my way to Argentina when I saw on Television a documentary on the acceleration of the calving of Tabular Icebergs in the Antarctic; their going to see is accelerating and, according to the scientific report mentioned by the commentator, there should not be any more of these in some years.
I thus decided to record the presence of these giants by joining a small expedition vessel on two journeys.
Instead of taking these images with all the colors and facility that modern digital cameras allow, I kept in mind that I wanted my son to be able to view the physical proof of this visión of these huge monuments. Digital images do not exist without the representation of electronic aparatus. I wanted to leave slides or negatives to my son for him view and posess.
I also chose to avoid perspective effects, in an attempt to not anchor the images I would take in the aesthetic paradigm of a specific time; simplicity and frontality of composition would be kept at all times. These images were thus taken with the horizon in the middle of the frame, the “Monument” in the center, as would have done a portrait painter of centuries past.
It is for this reason that I chose black and White as medium, as every color or slide film has its own color rendering and palette agravating the possibility of being cast in a specific time of photographic capture because of color choices.
Within these composition constrains, I nevertheless chose two opposite framing formats: on one hand, the square, deemed neutral but in fact with strong relations of strength within the composition and a very elongated format, a panoramic reminiscent of 19th century landscape photographers. With this choice of formats, the technical difficulties mounted as I prepared to photograph with small aperture lenses, a “widescreen” type of panoramic camera that is usually used with a tripod, which is impossible on a boat, and a constantly tilting horizon, this effect accentuated with the panoramic format.
These images were received by different publics with completely different commentaries; when exposed at “Paris Photo”, the european and art scene public of Europe viewed these images from the aesthetic standpoint described above and with an anchoring in the mastery of the black and white medium, congratulating the Masterprinter Alex Videtzky.
When exposed in Argentina, these images were regarded, thanks to the title “Monumentos a la Deriva” found by the Curator of the exhibition Ana Martinez Quijano, as making a parallel between the wanterings and fate of these icebergs and the evolution of the local society over the past couple of years.
Christian Catafago
