Spanish artist Manuel Franquelo is soon to launch his first solo show in the UK, with six large-scale photographic pieces from his work in progress Things in a Room: An Ethnography of the Insignificant.
The pieces from this series, produced through techniques borrowed from scientific photography and endowed with an uncanny hyperreal presence, are an inquiry into the things that have accumulated, over the years, in the nooks and crannies of a space inhabited by the artist.
In this project, Franquelo articulates his interest in time, memory, the subconscious, and what the French writer Georges Perec (1936-82) grouped under the category of the 'infra-ordinary', that is: everything that, because of its obviousness and insignificance, remains hidden beneath the normal threshold of perception.
"My intention is that the photographs of this series be timeless rather than decisive moments in time," explains Franquelo. "They are life-size digital images that embody legitimate pretentions to truth, highlighting the complexity and full scale of what is represented. Things in a Room is an account of the objects that my own existence accumulated over a period of about 30 years."
Things in a Room: An Ethnography of the Insignificant will be on show at the Michael Hoppen Gallery until 12 April 2017.
All images © Manuel Franquelo | Courtesy of Michael Hoppen Gallery
Main image: Things in a Room (Untitled #5) © Manuel Franquelo | Courtesy of Michael Hoppen Gallery
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