André Kertész [antikvár]

TO SEE IS TO READ An idea in vogue has it lhat the artist must necessarily be in opposition io his language, that he has to force it, constrain it, and twist its syntax in order io mold it to his own design. However, another definition of arl is perhaps not only possible bui more accurate - thai the real artist is someone who has been able, through patient work or with immediate insight, io discover the profound nature of the language he has chosen and its lows, and io fully exploit its forms of expression, from the most obvious to the most hidden. These two types of ariisi will always be in opposiiion. The first lives in a stale of continual conflict between his ego and his language, while the second is constantly learning about the increasing concordance of his language and his world. For, if he carries it to its limits, ihe analysis of his art's essential forms necessarily leads him io discover the bonds of secret suitability linking it to certain objecls of Ihe world, and, moreover, ihat the laws of his art are perhaps those of the world ilself, and that art is their revelator. This is no doubt the motivating intuition thai inspires the meaning and is ihe driving force behind ihe work of André Keriész. From the beginning, ihe artist seems to have discovered and established lhat, by ils very nature, black and while photography was destined to become much more than a simple mode of figurative representation and thai ihe way ii represents things makes it a mode of intellection of the world. This is noi only because photography, like painting, cuts up ihe world, frames and immobilizes ii, reducing it to two of its three natural dimensions, but also because black and while photography substitutes for colors an abstract scale of gradations from absolufe black to brillianf white.