‘3×4 = ORAIN’ is the name of the new exhibition of photobooks that San Telmo Museoa hosts. /
The San Telmo Museum hosts until October 30 an exhibition in which four artists from three different disciplines reflect on the narrative of the image in the photobook
If four musicians, four filmmakers and four writers were asked about their opinion about photobooks, what would they answer? This is the hypothesis that Jon Cazenave put forward for the new exhibition ‘3×4 = ORAIN. Cinema, music and literature in the photobook’ and which can now be visited at the San Telmo Museum Laboratory until October 30. A free sample featuring the answers these twelve creators wrote about the photobooks they received. Along with their texts, the visitor can contemplate on the second floor of the museum the photographic specimens that inspired them.
“The photobook is more than a book made up of photographs, it is an artistic object where the images lose their autonomous character to offer a narrative intention and a visual rhythm”, explains Cazenave, curator of the exhibition to which he has also contributed his own reflections personal on 18 other publications. In total, the exhibition accumulates up to thirty books, recovered from among the more than 3,000 copies that the Gabriela Cendoya Bergareche Collection possesses, which, since 2017, has been deposited in a fund of the museum’s library.
The exhibition is located in the ‘Laboratory’ on the second floor. /
Twelve texts written from the perspective of three disciplines that demonstrate the deep bond they share with photography. “We wanted to take artists out of their field so that they would naturally give their opinion about other artistic expressions as we all do, for example, after watching a movie,” says the curator. Among the artists who have participated are the musicians Judith Jáuregui, Ramón Lazkano, Anari and Pello Ramírez; the filmmakers Arantza Santesteban, Maddi Barber, Oskar Alegría and Koldo Almandoz; and the writers Miren Agur Meabe, Eider Rodríguez, Harkaitz Cano and Karmele Jaio.
Photobooks and related activities
One that Cazenave highlights is ‘On Abortion’, which “shows that the photobook is a useful tool for understanding current affairs, especially after what has happened in the US in recent weeks.” This photographic work by the Catalan Laia Abril, according to its author, is “a conceptual map of the repercussions of not having access to abortion in the world” and that has testimonies and images of women who have lived with this problem.
Parallel to the exhibition, the San Telmo Museum organizes a significant number of activities “which start tomorrow Saturday with a family workshop” for children between 5 and 11 years old (5:00 p.m., free) and “the ‘Gaua Photobook’ in which the The museum will open all night to visit the temporary exhibitions, the photobook exhibition and the cloister, where there will be DJs, projections and bar service”, says Susana Soto, director of the museum. Starting in October and November, activities such as photobook laboratories for young people and conferences around the image with Toni Amengual, Susana Romanos and Pello Ramírez will return.