JUANELE INTERVIEWS EDUARDO GIL

AUGUST 23, 2010 • GIL’S STUDIO • BUENOS AIRES

Juanele visits Eduardo Gil in his studio where he has undertaken the task
of revising his entire archive, negative by negative. We see photographs
that have never been exhibited. We discuss how the same image can
adorn the pages of a family album or become highly critical, depending
on the intention, the context and the sense of the work. We talk about
the importance of experimentation and why photography has radically
changed in the last ten years. “

For art in general, Gil says, certainties are lethal.

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GABRIELA SCHEVACH: Now I’m going to ask Eduardo Gil: What is photography?

EDUARDO GIL: Today this is a question that’s hard to answer. Ten years ago I could tell
you very clearly what photograhy was. Fortunately today, photography has become
something wider, more ambiguous and unstable, with vague edges. Postmodern
photography, the photography that came after Clement Greenberg’s postulates about
the limits of art, has precisely enabled us to show the world, an aesthetic project or
to show oneself, also with the possibility of interacting and exchanging with other
languages, employing a photo camera or not. It’s something very rich and passionate
and that always keeps a connection with the real that photographers love. If you’d like
to, I can show you some pictures.

GS: Let’s go.

What’s this?

EG: These are photos, obviously. There are photos that start out following the classics,
until this and then this and then this, etc.

GS: But it’s a selection of what you shot in color in the last few years.

EG: It’s not really a selection. The most complete here are Aporías and Paisajes
(Landscapes). The rest is a kind of hinge between this, that was more related to [my
works in] black and white. It’s an absolute transition. This is the first color work I’ve
done.

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GS: You haven’t shown it yet, have you?

EG: No, not at all, I haven’t shown it. There are lots of things that were never shown.

GS: You say this is an absolute transition and I realize, because of the documentary
style, the portraits and all that... But for you, now that you are revising it, how would
you locate these photos in the context of your work?

EG: Well, this belongs to the time when I stopped shooting black and white, I started
using more color [film] for professional reasons, I started travelling for work and, well,
for practical matters, for traveling, I started to carry just color film rolls and only one
camera loaded with color film. So when I’m in situations I want to photograph, well, I
have to shoot in color.

Suddenly I started to find out that colors are important in what I want to show. In this
case, a formal period. Different places, different countries. But it’s a moment when
there isn’t a clearly-defined investigation yet; I am understanding myself with color:
Knowing how it works, experimenting, learning. And there is a bit of everything.

GS: I’ve the feeling you are increasingly appreciating these experimentations.

EG: Yes, because they provide a way of finding connections. When you put two images
side by side, you start to discover where some explorations are coming from, where a
certain way of framing appeared and that’s very useful in order to learn where you are
today and why you came to this point.
This is related to a better thought-out period of more intentional investigations,
when I started to work with medium format, which also involves a decision. Here I
was already completely familiar with doing color [photography]. Framings start to find
unity, I start to get rid of things that had been essential for me: the visual impact,
the play with emotions, emphasizing characters. People start to disappear, framing
becomes austere. I start to detach myself from the artist and begin to act as a kind of
operator who shows what is there, the force of the index, somebody would say. [He
is referring to authors like Roland Barthes and Phillipe Dubois, who in turn base their
theories on Charles S. Peirce’s classification of signs].

The framing tries to be aseptic, without emphasis and, well, obviously very influenced
by the Düsseldorf school [He refers to the work of Bern and Hilla Becher and their
disciples at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf] and all those currents started to interest
me very much.

And precisely when I search my past I find pictures that are like precedents of these
framings, of this way of making pictures, that I hadn’t found a place for in my work
before. When I did this book, this Docena [He is referring to PRAESAGIUM - Eduardo Gil
12na. Edición Guido Indij VVVgallery. Buenos Aires, 2009]. I found these pictures, these
pictures made twelve years ago. I found these framings, well these not so much, but
there are very clear precedents here. These were pictures I’ve taken ten, eight and
twelve years ago, but these kind of framings didn’t belong in my work. These are
different places that I start to associate with in the editing.

But, well, here and in other projects, I start to discover where this frontality comes

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from, this detached investigation and, well, it’s related to things I did without knowing
why.

This is the work I am doing now, entitled Aporías. It’s about images related to an idea
of a great country, a greatness that never happened. Places that were important or
that had an aim, a possibility of creating and producing, but today they are closed.
This, for instance, was a huge meat processing plant in Patagonia that used to provide
the whole Latin America and is now closed. This is a much broader project.

Aporías is a philosophical term that involves talking about things that have no answer.
This is a part of Aporías, a kind of movement in a symphony, that I call Marcas (Marks).
They are related to getting close to these industrial places; these are traces of what
there is and there was. I think I can see here a kind of somebody who is shouting, that
wants to get out from under the peeled paint. Disturbing images start to appear. Here
is also a part where I play with numbers, marks that had different aims, industrial
uses; but if we observe them with an aesthetic intention, they are very powerful for
me.

GS: Yes, they are like traces of something that has functioned at a certain point. Why
number and classify things that aren’t working?

EG: They finish very darkly.

GS: A bit like galaxies...

Many years have gone by, but it’s very powerful to pass from a Bressonian style
[referring to the influential French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson], like your first
pictures, at least the ones, that, according to your account, you’ve shot with a clear
awareness of the photographic discourse you were employing. You’ve passed on to
this work that’s abstract. Anyway there is a very strong formal investigation in both
aesthetics.

EG: Yes, yes. They are different aesthetics. That’s why I’m interested in showing my
developments, because it allows me to find this change. I don’t know if I can call it
evolution, but change.

One thing I propose and always try to suggest is the need to question oneself
permanently, the reflection about the practice, what you do. To be able to make an
effort each day, not to simply be satisfied with what you’ve accomplished, but to try
to reach a higher complexity every day. I think at the beginning you are a bit naïve and
then unfortunately unfortunately because at the beginning you enjoy it all, you like
everything, everything’s fantastic, you are happy when a picture’s sharp. But then you
start to complicate and you start to understand and to study and, well, interesting
things start to turn up every now and then, very generally. So this generates a need
to reflect, think and further think and further reflect and question much deeper. And
when you start to do something that is enthusiastically welcome and liked or that is
kind of successful, then comes a moment of great danger when the artist can say this
is my thing and stay there. That’s lethal.

For art in general, certainties are lethal.

This idea of going from a format to another, from one investigation to another. Is it
enough to provoke an emotion? Is it enough when people feel attracted by the visual?
Is it enough and for whom? There are things that are enough and people love it and
that’s very gratifying, narcisism feels nurtured, but that’s not enough for myself. The
first to demand change is me. And that’s the need, to go always deeper. And that
involves risks as well, because you can take the wrong decision, but, well it’s risk. If you
don’t take it, you would do always the same. Yes, there is a clear change and I hope I
can always go on changing, obviously.

GS: The author is always a constant for you, isn’t it?

EG: Well, I’ve had my author period. That’s a moment when you feel that you’ve become
a professional who detaches him or herself from the norm, the average. That is to say,
this moment is very close to the period of knowledge, of being a trained photographer.
It’s closely related to the so-called creative as well. Nowadays I’m more interested and
that’s why I’ve employed the word operator before, I’m more interested in the concept,
although I never neglect the visual aspects, that still interests me very much. It’s the
fact of being a trained photographer that doesn’t interest me that much. Already when
I’ve made the book [(agentina), Ediciones Cuarto 14 Buenos Aires. 2002], I had done a
break-up.

In spite of going on doing black and white pictures, in spite of still using a 35 mm
camera, I had already made a break-up with how things should be, with the established,
with the Bressonian [he refers again to French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson].
My first period of color photography keeps the Bressonian discourse at the beginning,

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then I become an author again. But today I don’t know if I feel like an author. I feel I’m
someone permanently experimenting, who intends to open new ways of expression
through video, installation, spatial work, incorporating new materials. The notion of
author is more associated with an image of black and white photography, more artistic,
but not in the best sense of that word.

GS: I was referring to the author as the subject that works from his or her own insight
and ideas, a subjective world view.

EG: In that sense, yes.

This is related to Aporías, to complete those places that have never really happened or
that happened but are now closed. Aporías has a movement that is Marcas [Marks].
But there’s another movement, there is something here, entitled Enjoy it, related to
places that had been built for tourism. Places thought-out for pleasure, leisure, having
a good time. Today they are abandoned, destroyed places. These cabins, precisely this
place doesn’t exist any more. Luxury hotels, El Edén Hotel, where nazi party leaders
came for holidays in La Falda, Córdoba, and is today an absolute ruin. This is a part of
Aporías, a sub-chapter involving these horror holidays. This is the back of the Edén
Hotel, the gardens, that are now quite particular, aren’t they?

What I mean is that, when you think and rethink, this is nowadays the work I most
identify with my investigations and concerns. It’s called Paisajes [Landscapes] and
these are the pictures where the concept of the operator is clearer than in other
projects. These people I photograph are always lit with the same kind of lighting,

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always with the same background, always asking them to come with no make-up,
no ornaments. I could have these pictures taken by my assistant, just arranging an
appointment schedule. Because there’s practically nothing personal and, if there is, I
try to reduce it to the minimum. That is to say, the most personal here is the election
of the subjects.

Here’s a change with respect to the notion of author. Here I couldn’t say Look how good
I employ lighting. No, lighting here consists of two umbrellas at 45°: Period, there’s
nothing else. And that’s what interests me the most, the undertone of these images
that have no particular intention, at least a clear intention as to why each subject is
included. There are people I know, people I don’t know, people I meet in the street and I
ask them if they are open to do this experience.

GS: I want to ask you about your teaching work. I’ve taken part in your workshops
and I remember that at the beginning in 1992 we tried to move away from holiday
photography. In contrast to that, we would try to do serious work. I think today the
concept is different as to what is considered serious photography.

EG: Of course, the term "serious" has changed. What is it, to do photography seriously?

Perhaps the playfu today is a part of the work. It’s related to how you systematize the
investigations, then it can be pictures made during holidays, commissioned pictures. In
fact I show pictures done in a work-for-hire context. There are people who use pictures
shot in... I’m thinking of Martin Rubini, who has shot society pictures in birthday
parties because he has worked for many years as a party photographer. And he uses
that material to produce a fantastic book that got a prize in Mexico. And his pictures
were produced in a contractual context and they were given in albums to the families
who commissioned them and who were very satisfied with them. Nevertheless, these
pictures are highly critical. That’s how everything depends on intention, the pertinence
of the project and the sense of the work.

GS: But there is perhaps an awareness, I don’t know if I should call it deeper or if it’s
perhaps more superficial, more visible, of the photographic genres. No doubt, there is, I
think, a wider circulation of images.

EG: Absolutely.

GS: Because of the internet. Could it be that there is a stronger awareness of the
photographic genres or that the fact that so many images are circulating has altered
the way to work with photographs? Do you think that has an influence?

EG: I think that without doubt there is an influence. It’s a situation similar to the end
of the 19th Century when cameras could be bought by almost anyone. So the ones
doing photography seriously are astonished and get frightened and they search for
ways to be different. I think that the photographers who got closest to that massive
banalization of images can best represent the language of photography in the first half
of the 20th Century.

The same happens today: We can’t overlook the images taken with cell phones, all the
facebook and Flickr pictures, they are all permanently in the air. What I do think is that
there is a democratic understanding of what a good image is in the simplest and most
superficial sense. We see a lot of images on Flickr that are nice, good, in the sense that
they are well made, but you wouldn’t look at them for more than a fraction of a second.
So I think there are people who can take these kind of images, be it to incorporate them,
to share them through the web, but mainly to work critically within this reality. Not
like saying what I do is very special, but what I do is a reflection about that or about a
person or about a situation or about photography.

Because a lot of the photography made today comments on photography itself; lots
of art is reflecting about art itself. So I think this could be the most evident change in
photography, comparing the situation today and ten years ago.

Interview by Gabriela Schevach for Juanele

Photographs by Eduardo Gil and © 2010 Eduardo Gil
Design by Rick Powell
This document released under a Creative Commons Attribution - Non Commercial - NoDerivs License

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