Press release

Chema Madoz Untitled, B&W, 50 x 60 cm, 2003

Soloexhibition

Chema Madoz
19th september 20th november 2013
Opening reception: Wednesday, 18th september from 7-10 pm
The artist will be present.
The exhibition is curated by Toms Rodrguez Soto.
About the artist:
Jos Mara Rodriguez Madoz better known as Chema Madoz born in 1958 in Madrid, where he lives and works.
He studied History of Art at the Complutense University of Madrid at the same time as attending photography
courses at the Centro de Enseanza de la Imagen. His first individual exhibition was in Madrid in 1983, at the
Royal Photographic Society of Madrid. Since 1990 he has been developing the concept of objects, a subject
which would appear constantly in his photography until the present. Madozs work approaches the genre of
transient sculpture. They are characterised by complete simplicity, always in black and white, with careful
lighting and the objects photographed are made with exquisite skill.

At the end of 1999 the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofa dedicates him an individual show Objetos
1990 1999, which was the first retrospective show of this museum for a living spanish photographer. Chema
Madoz has received a number of important awards and honors such as: Kodak Spain Prize (1991), National
Photography Award, Spain (2000), Higasikawa Overseas Photographer Prize from the Higasikawa PhotoFestival
(Japan) (2000), PhotoEspaa Award (2000).
His work is represented in many private and public collections, including Museo de Arte Reina Sofa, Madrid;
Coleccin Fundacin Telefnica, Madrid; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Fonds National d`art Contemporain.
Pars; DZ Bank Kunstsammlung among others.
This is his first solo exhibition held in the gallery.
About the work *:
Spanish photographer Chema Madoz has been photographing ordinary objects for more than 20 years. His
refined black and white photographs show common objects that have been craftily manipulated by Madoz
himself, placed out of their original context and joined together to create a new reality before photographing
them. Its visual poetry.
The world of visual paradoxes is, indeed, a celebration of photography. Madoz creates his peculiar objects only
to photograph them; he doesnt exhibit of use them afterwards, they exist exclusively for the camera. These
(re)contextualised objects charge Madozs photographs with symbols, metaphors and double meanings. Madoz
constructs from these objects a new fictionalised reality and documents its ephemeral existence.
Madoz photographs a genre that is as ancient as art itself. Still-life has been a focus for artists since cave
paintings and has also been a recurrent theme in photography: William Henry Fox Talbot, Emmanuel Sougez,
Joel-Peter Witkin, Wolfgang Tillmans or Jeff Wall, among an endless list, have photographed still-life. But Madozs
photographs (re)present the genre with a distinctive rhetoric. As Cristian Caujolle points out: Madozs work is
articulated by deceptive objects which, behind their regular appearance, hide a strangeness which creates a
new appreciation of them. According to Caujolle, that new appreciation is what stops Madozs photographs
from being traditional still-life.
In fact, what is important in Madozs work is not we see but what we dont see. Not what is shown but the way
in which Madozs photographs introduce and use different elements. Madozs photograps need our participation
to be complete. They force us to think twice about what we see, and there, in our intellect, they are finally
finished and fulfilled. That demand for our participation, it could be said, impedes them for being still. Rather
than depict still-life, Madoz produces still-alives images.
Madozs photographs are not made only to be seen; they are also made to be thought about, meditated on, and
therefore to be, in all senses, contemplated. And that is precisely why Madozs images are so extraordinary; his
visual paradoxes need our deduction, our meditation; they are created to be performed and concluded in our
minds. And this is where Madozs photographs in truth work, not on the paper, but within our intellectual
engagement. They are instruments for thinking and reflecting. The tension between what the eye sees and what
the brain reads makes us, as viewers, an essential element of Madozs work.
Madozs photographs are titled Untitled, which is itself a paradox. In fact, by titling his photographs Untitled,
what Madoz does is to paradoxically, (un)title his photographs. Madoz plays with the (visual) poetry of language
and the complex simplicity of his (re) contextualised (re) presentations which, via resemblance and distraction,
are performed in our intellect, leading us into a state of not only dual contemplation but of interaction; giving
us, in any case, something we did not have before.
Pedro Vicent Mullor
* Extract from: Mullor, Pedro Vicent. "Chema Madoz." Eyemazing. 02 (2007)

contact and adress:

Gunther Dietrich,Toms Rodrguez Soto (curators)
PHOTO EDITION BERLIN
gallery for contemporary photography
Ystaderstr.14a
D- 10437 Berlin
Tel: +49 (0)30 41717831
Mobile: +49 (0)177 4708633
E-mail: contact@photoeditionberlin.com
Gallery website:
www.photoeditionberlin.com
Direct link to the exhibition:
http://www.photoeditionberlin.com/k%C3%BCnstler-artists/chema-madoz/

Opening hours:
Wednesday 2-6 pm
Saturday 12am -4 pm
and always by appointment
Public transport:
U2, S8, S9, S41, S42, S85, Schnhauser Allee
Tram M1 Schnhauser Allee
Artist website:
http://www.chemamadoz.com

Biography:
Jose Maria Rodriguez Madoz (born 1958) better known as Chema Madoz, is one of the best known and honoured
contemporary spanish photographer.
Chema Madoz studied Art History at Universidad Complutense de Madrid between 1980 and 1983. It is here that
he was first exposed to the study of photography and imaging.
He has done international solo shows at Netherland Photomuseum, Rotterdam / Museo Nacional Centro de Arte
Reina Sofa, Madrid, Spain. / Hermitage Museum, Kazn. Russia / Museo Nacional de Arte Contemporneo,
Santiago de Chile, Chile / Museum fr Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany / Museet for Fotokunst, Odense,
Denmark / Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas, Venezuela among others.
His work has been collected by private and public collections like the Museo de Arte Reina Sofa/ Fondos de Arte
del Ministerio de Cultura, Paris, France/ Herms Collection. Pars, France / Saastamoinen Foundation Art
Collection, Helsinki, Finland / Marugame Hirai Museum, Japn, / Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, USA / DZ Bank,
Frankfurt, Germany / Museo de Bellas Artes de Buenos Aires, Argentina among many others.
He has won several prices like the Bartolom Ros, Photoespaa Award, 2011 / Premio Nacional de Fotografa,
Ministerio de Cultura, Spain, 2000 / Higasikawa Award. Overseas Photographer. Japan, 2000 / Premio
PhotoEspaa, 2000 / Premio Kodak Espaa, 1991.
http://www.photoeditionberlin.com/k%C3%BCnstler-artists/chema-madoz/biography/

The works:

For high resolution images please sent requests to contact@photo-edition-berlin.com

Chema Madoz

Chema Madoz Untitled, 2003. 50 x 60 cm. Soft selenium toned silver gelatine print

Chema Madoz Untitled, 2007. 60 x 50 cm. Soft selenium toned silver gelatine print

Chema Madoz Untitled, 2003. 50 x 50 cm. Soft selenium toned silver gelatine print

Chema Madoz Untitled, 2005. 60 x 50 cm. Soft selenium toned silver gelatine print

Chema Madoz Untitled, 2007. 60 x 50 cm. Soft selenium toned silver gelatine print