GALLERY: "Visual Correspondences" @ the Slought Foundation

"Visual Correspondences" - one of two exhibitions currently on view at the Slought Foundation - demonstrates that two people can still share meaningful exchanges, even in the absence of spoken conversation and physical contact.

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GALLERY: "Visual Correspondences" @ the Slought Foundation

POSTED: Thursday, June 23, 2011, 3:00 PM

Corvatas3 by Manel Esclusa

“Visual Correspondences” — one of two exhibitions currently on view at the Slought Foundation — demonstrates that two people can still share meaningful exchanges, even in the absence of spoken conversation and physical contact.

The show consists of five sequences of photographs and drawings done by Argentinean photographer Marcelo Brodsky and five other artists living and working all over the world. Arranged linearly from left to right, each photograph in a particular sequence evokes the one preceding it — through shared subject matter, similar coloration or like composition.

The project began when Brodsky and Manel Esclusa, a Spanish artist and photographer, began exchanging photographs with no accompanying text or explanation. Brodsky would send an initial photograph and Esclusa would send back one of his own, playing off the original image in some way. Reacting to what Esclusa had sent him, Brodsky would send a new photograph to his colleague, continuing the process to create a dialogue through imagery.

Since that time, Brodsky has undertaken similar exchanges with other artists, including Martin Parr, Cassio Vasconcellos and Pablo Ortiz Monasterio. “Visual Correspondences” is an exhibition of these collaborative efforts.

In one exchange between Brodsky and Parr, Brodsky begins with a photograph of young couples paired off at a school dance. The adolescents look awkward, nervous and excited. Exploring the relationship between two figures, Parr responds with a photograph of an elderly couple sitting across from one another in a '70s-style diner. The man stares blankly ahead as the woman looks down at her hands. In the subsequent photograph, a woman and young girl sit facing one another at a table outdoors, mimicking the position of the man and woman in the previous image. At the foot of the table, a dog sits placidly. Parr’s next photograph is a close-up image of a different dog tied to a leash. The sequence continues in this way with a dozen or so additional images that respond, in some way, to the one before it.

The relationship between images is sometimes evident, sometimes abstract. In each case, however, it is possible to see a kind of visual correspondence unfold between artists, even when it is not always clear what is being communicated.

In tandem with the exhibit, the Slought Foundation facilitated a community-workshop involving a similar photography exchange between six South Philadelphia High School students. The results of the workshop were unveiled last Tuesday and now decorate the walls of the gallery alongside the work of Brodsky and his colleagues. Remarkably, none of the students knew each other before being asked to take part in the workshop. They are all different ages, live in different neighborhoods, have different academic pursuits and come from different racial and ethnic backgrounds. Nevertheless, the students found common ground through participation in the project, engaging in non-verbal communication through the exchange of images. That's called learning through art!

Through June 30, free, Slought Foundation, 4017 Walnut St., 215-701-4627, slought.org.

(clare.foran@citypaper.net)

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