Yesterday we went to Kulturhuset in Stockholm to visit the exhibition Nuevas historias, showing contemporary Spanish photography. It was well worth the hour we spent there. One of the high points was seeing the work of Sergio Belinchón (picture above). His black-and-white photos of a Russian village seem to be very old, until you discover the tv-antennas on the roofs and the power lines. The pictures are set in old, used frames to enhance the impression of a time gone by – although the photos are taken in today´s Russia.
I found other parts of the exhibition less impressive, photos of street corners or of empty buildingd that were technically excellent, but did not raise any particular feelings, at least not in me.
Nowhere could I find any people working. The immigrant fruit-pickers in Southern Spain´s orange farms had apparently not been intestering enough for the curators of the exhibition. Neither workers anywhere else.
It was a stark contrast to the excellent Sebastiao Salgado-exhibition Kulturhuset showed some years ago.
Posted by Mats 
Mats Engström 
