Alfonso Zubiaga - Pictures, Art, Photography

Alfonso Zubiaga


Background Information about Alfonso Zubiaga

Introduction

The City of Soul, Speed, and a Racing Pulse


What city could be better suited for Alfonso Zubiaga’s neues Sehen of the metropolis than New York – the city that never sleeps, the pulsing metropolis whose pulse verily throbs on the streets. Zubiaga has developed his own signature look for architectural representation in these images, one that unites abstraction and the figurative and removes any trace of standstill from the seemingly unmoving image by accelerating it into motion. We find ourselves simultaneously in both the present and the future. Likewise the images are both real and virtual at the same time; they are groundbreaking and yet refer to that which will follow.


Zubiaga’s photos are a futuristic adventure through the streets of the modern metropolis. To everything that painters of the last century have found theatrical, apocalyptical, surreal, and visionary about urban scenarios, he now adds a sense of adventure and speed.


In the style of the futurists, Zubiaga has found a way to generate a whole entity out of time and space. The Spanish artist builds his photographic works on this foundation and then fantastically augments them digitally. Different from the futurists’ works, however, Zubiaga’s works have a very clear focus. In one he hones in on the apex of a New York skyscraper, while in another he looks into the depths of the city, through the canyon-like streets, to find a yellow taxi. Around this pivotal point, however, our view on the world is fragmented into multiple layered visions as through viewed through a kaleidoscope. This mode of seeing challenges us to focus and de-focus simultaneously: the eye wanders constantly and yet always returns to the central focal point.

Bio

1958 Born in Guecho, Vizcaya, Spain
1973Began working as a photographer
1983Moved to London, where he worked as a photographer for EL PAIS, DIARIO 16, VIAJAR, as well as for the film Graystoke (Hugh Hudson) and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Steven Spielberg)
1985 Moved to Madrid and opened his own studio
Seit 2007 Taught the international photography masters’ class at EFTI Madrid

Lives and works in Madrid, Spain

Awards

2008Iman (Fecemd)
1995 /96Cresta Internacional
1999 Fiap
1994/95/96Festival de San Sebastian
1999/00/05 Festival de San Sebastian
1995 Eurobest
1995/97 New York Festival
1998/99  New York Festival
1995/97Cannes
1998/01Cannes
1996  Epica Primer Permio

Exhibitions

2010 Outart, Madrid, Spain
 Madrid Foto, Madrid, Spain
ARCO, Gallery Vanguardia, Madrid, Spain
2009ABC Art Berlin Contemporary, Berlin, Germany
ARCO, Gallery Vanguardia, Madrid, Spanien
Art Berlin Contemporary, Gallery Artiled, Berlin, Germany
2000-2006Images for didnity. Photo España 1999, touring exhibition Spain and Portugal
1997 AFP Exhibitions in the Contemporay Art Museum, Madrid, Spain
1984The London council, collective, London, UK
1983The Box Brownie, East End, London, UK