Zoe Leonard Exhibition

I had the change to visit the Zoe Leonard exhibition in Chelsea which spoke a lot to my work.

Upon entering the gallery there was a giant white room; on each wall hung one or two faded looking photos. There was a giant white circle in the middle and faded gray around it. The images were of the sun. They had a thin almost black boarder surrounded by another two-inch boarder around the entire thing.     

      

            When entering the second room, it was extremely dark and had a hole in the wall with a lens in it. It was the camera obscura. We were encouraged to sit in the room and as our eyes adjusted, we saw the images of the world surrounding the building on the walls projected from the camera obscura. It created a very relaxing and meditative environment; watching the movement from the outside world in the dark room was very serene.

            After leaving this room and coming back into the first light room, the images on the walls looked very different. They no longer looked washed out, but had much more contrast in the tones that created them. Though the two rooms were very different, yet they had a deeper connection than one might have originally thought.

            The camera obscura has been seen many times before in different exhibitions and throughout history in general, so some visitors might question why Leonard decided to revisit it. Being prepared for this, she explains this answer in her press release, stating that at this point in time, we all constantly seeing images. She is asking questions about sight, and the camera obscura is a different way of seeing an image- “it does not have to result in a fixed image”. She continues on to explain that it creates a space and an experience; the viewers are inside a camera.

            The press release definitely helps hold the exhibition together. Since it is such a simple subject, the explanation really added dimension to the experience. I really enjoyed reading her thoughts on the question of digital vs analogue. Her response was “…I think the artist should choose whichever medium works best for them.” This is a question I always debate (which I should be using), and it was enlightening to read her thoughts, and how it lead her to create a camera obscura. She also goes on to relate the camera obscura to the unconscious and what happens inside of a person’s head. This is an interesting concept for me to think about, since a lot of my pinholes are dream like.