DANIEL CANOGAR

versión en español

It has been some time since the work of Canogar can be directly defined as photography. Light is one of its fundamental components, as is the figurative representation of the body, elements that might seem to place him at a point midway between photography and painting. In his most recent work, however, he has introduced some new and definitive elements, such as architecture, and in more diffuse terms, a sense of spectacle. The specific use of light and darkness offers an even stronger suggestion of spectacular stage scenery, a feeling that justifies the need for a greater individuality in the presentation of his works. Once again this radically innovative project is overshadowed by an inevitable memory of pioneer cinematographic spectacles, and of the magic lanterns that projected the first photographs. Cinema, undoubtedly the most characteristic spectacle of our modern era, is in need of darkness as well as electricity, demanding equal portions of pure technology and developed industry, and an imaginative audience, eager for novel sensations and with an insatiable curiosity.   By the same token, the stories that Canogar tells us are immersed in the magic provided by darkness. Using light, he offers us a specific image, a story we must develop ourselves. Canogar, avid spectator of wonderful and at the same time opaque artificial worlds, is very fond of the idea of spectacle. Cinema, however, is the real wonderworld that we may enter through a small door, through our eyes and our imagination. This entrance leads directly to a world of dreams and feelings, a fragile world that we have furnished over the years with real experiences and hidden fantasies, with dreams and nightmares, a world inhabited by our ghosts, that sometimes opens fleetingly before our eyes. The contemplation of this landscape produces an incomparable impression and is so swift that we can hardly recall it in a concrete way, almost impossible to capture in words or images. This process could be parallel and similar to the one Canogar uses as he traces these images, forms and structures that originate as much from the real world as from the imaginary one, ethereal but no less real because of it. The walls of the exhibition space open to release bodies it had imprisoned at some point; architectural reality and a sense of time have been reconstructed to create this installation in which bodies struggle against real oppression. Since we cannot say if a dream is more real than an illusion, it seems wrong to me to totally delimit the areas of reality and imagination; I find it increasingly difficult to know what the soul is up to and what are the limits of the body. Excerpt from catalog: Rosa Olivares	. "Transfusions: piece 1" 1995 Photoliths, 20 x 20 x 180 cm. box, fiber optic cables, light projector.
	"Transfusions: piece 2" 1995 Photoliths, 20 x 20 x 180 cm. box, fiber optic cables, light projector.
	"Transfusions: piece 3" 1995 Photoliths, 20 x 20 x 180 cm. box, fiber optic cables, light projector.
	"Fissure" 1995 470 x 246 x 200 cm. Wood structure, photolith, halogen light.
	"Oppression" 1995 244 x 122 x 25 cm. Wood structure, photolith, halogen light.
	"Buttress" 1995 336 x 244 x 90 cm. Wood structure, photolith, halogen light.