A roomful of silence

2017

The work of the photographer and art conservator Josefina López (Santiago, 1981) focuses on a careful observation of the places where art stands. Her work, which shows a journey through museums and galleries, is particularly insightful because she herself is deeply knowledgeable about the operation of these great heritage preservation machines, as well as the use of artistic media. Her sharp gaze accurately portrays the environment where the cultural phenomenon of visuality develops. The work selected for Galería NAC reflects on a personal research project that began in 2009, where the artist visits and photographs large collections in several countries, mainly in North America and Europe, along with participating in specialization programs in conservation, linked to museums and exhibition spaces. In photography, the exposure time or shutter speed is represented in fractions of a second and those measurements less than 1/60 are considered low, understanding this as the minimum shutter speed to obtain clear images shot handheld, like those in this series. 1/15 is a quarter of 1/60 and becomes, in this exhibition, “a roomful of silence” (in Spanish, Un cuarto de silencio), where chance and the precision meet, alongside with an eye trained for looking into the deep depths of art. The photographic record presented in this exhibition shows the different ways of organizing the visual space of these places, where a complex network of social, cultural, political and historical relations is generated in relationship with the symbolic objects and the characters present. Thus, through this work some of the most recognized spaces in the art world appear together, such as Moma PS1, Tate or the Rijksmuseum. The picture, the framing, the work that is projected into space and its relationship with the architecture, the psychological space or the rituals of the viewer, are some of the elements that appear revealed in these images loaded with content that manage to manifest themselves only through the silence of observation and contemplation of those who inhabit or transit these spaces of art. Text by Pedro Donoso