MONUMENTS ADRIFT
Like an ancient traveler, Christian Catafago returned from one of the iciest regions on earth with a treasure: striking images of ice floes. The expedition meant not only facing a complex technological challenge but also delving into the depths of nature. Artist and camera—that extension of the eye that is his tool—came to form part of the same universe.
When printed on paper, the portraits of those formidable floes took on the hypnotic power that today captivates the viewer.
Christian Catafago’s lens penetrates appearances; things show themselves for what they really are. Those white masses hold the infinite. A close look at his images takes us to the essence of things, to the core of their being.
Regarding the sophisticated photographic process, Carle Catafago states, “Out of respect for the grandeur of the icebergs, I chose a panoramic camera of the sort used in the 19th century. Despite the difficulty of taking series from a boat where everything moves about, I used long exposure times.”
The images of these masses of ice floating off of Antarctica resonate in the aesthetic unconscious, recalling the sensations we experience before great monuments. These images exercise the same powerful allure.
Proximity to such a strange place gives rise to a cosmic feeling and extreme solitude heightens the perception of sublime beauty. A white world interrupts the clear horizon line, conveying something that exceeds the pleasure of contemplation.
The strange perspectives of the ice’s structure are excessive in their lacerating beauty. These ghostly presences that follow an unknown course move in a menacing time. They bear beauty which, for Rilke, is “nothing but the start of terror we can hardly bear.”[1]
While the ice floes may date back to a past remote and “eternal,” their fate is, irremediably, to come undone in the ocean. “These giants can vanish in a matter of weeks. I see them as a symbol for the acceleration of our times,” states the artist. His thinking is akin to that of Paul Virilio when he says, “Speed has reduced the world to nothing.”[2]
The masses of ice are there, before our eyes, portrayed in the immediacy of a present in full flight and with the mark of a still invisible future that implies their demise. Time is thus embodied in matter.
Ana Martínez Quijano
[1] Rainer Maria Rilke, The First Duino Elegy.
[2] Paul Virilio, statement to Página12 newspaper, Aug, 20, 2010.