Valladolid,
Trained in Audiovisual Communication, Víctor Hugo Martín Caballero specialized in Photography Direction at the ECAM in Madrid and there he began his professional career, filming video clips, short films and advertising spots that he combined with artistic projects in those fields of photography and video art. His work has been characterized, for approximately fifteen years, by a particular treatment of light that affects both what is revealed and what is hidden, also by his intentional transmission of sensations based, precisely, on what is luminous and of the dark Attracted by ways of making present the unknown, uncertainty, and by emphasizing for the viewer the mystery of what we do not see and the loneliness of what does move us, he sometimes works almost instinctively, without modifying landscapes; On other occasions it does intervene in them, transforming them (and generating new ones) thanks to that illumination.
He usually uses fragments or recontextualizations when examining the communicative power of images; He is interested in exploring what we understand by reality and fiction and how light affects our perception of the landscape; although he has not lost sight, on that path, of documentary photography and the mixture, in some of his proposals, with that of a purely artistic nature. Technically, it does not resort to black and white or small formats, in both cases with expressive and immersive intentions for the observer – color is more useful for constructing fictions – and although it uses digital cameras, These are not what mark the final results in his work.
The most recent project by this Valladolid artist can be visited since last Christmas at the Javier Silva Gallery in his city: it is titled “The Contact Angle” and consists of a dozen photographs and two videos that capture fragments of some of the hydraulic infrastructure structures; They specifically correspond to reservoirs in Burgos (Arlanzón, Cereceda, Los Valos), Madrid (El Atazar), Soria (Campillo de Buitrago) and Valencia (Cortes-La Muela). They refer to the not-distant past in which these works were built, to the profound transformations of the territory undertaken in the last century and to the design of the non-urban environment to satisfy the demands (energy, logistics) of a population that resided, increasingly measure then, away from him.
The purpose of this work is neither documentary (cartographic) nor exhaustive, hence, once again, Martín Caballero does not make systematic use of certain types of plans, diffuse lights, comparative studies or black and white: he has preferred the partial views, the cold tones, usually bluish, and the artificially illuminated night environments that give the result a dark, scenic atmosphere. We will not find in these images, as in most of his, a human presence: it would be complex due to the long exposure time that the process implies, but this absence accentuates a confusion in those who contemplate, who do not know the scale and proportions of the motifs and , if not previously informed, its same meaning.
Andrés Carretero points out, in the text that accompanies this exhibition, that between creative photography (without political or scientific use, and therefore subject to the coming and going of trends) and constructive photography (which does have a purpose) -Walter distinguished them Benjamin in his Little history of photography-, this author places himself in a terrain that we could consider intermediate, halfway between nature and artifice, ecology and the monument; even between humans and geology. It does not seek mimesis, but rather the design of new fictions.
Victor Hugo Martín Caballero. “The contact angle”
JAVIER SILVA GALLERY
C/ Renedo, 8
Valladolid
From December 27, 2024
