Erica Bohm

The work which I believe is more representative of myself is that of the “Pantone” Series. These are photographs of landscapes that were taken with analog cameras of 35 and 120 mm. These shots were taken with long exposure, the negative is burned by excessive exposure to light of the photographic material. These overexposed negatives lacking contrast and detail, only the extremely relevant is kept in the picture. The intensity of light and the long time of exposition destroy the accurate record of the image, and that allows me to work in the limit. I am interested in the situation of contemplation of the landscape through the lens and in the situation of error at work. The atmosphere and the color of the images, obtained after the revealing process ante the copying process, at first sight seem supernatural and unreal, like in a dream. Nevertheless, I find that the most interesting quality that this kind of experience enables is the possibility of working by forcing the elements, almost at the limit of the disappearance of the image, and thence the possibility of observing the possible invisibility of the representation, according to the mode of work. In this case, it’s all about questioning the meaning of photography, understood as sideboard of the visible. The landscapes that I choose are an excuse for the invitation to travel. I am interested in generating a relationship between color, landscape and the intensity of the climate that each of the pictures has. The impression of a memory and the anxiety caused by the impossibility of its representation, as a necessity to prolong the contact, the proximity in time and the wish that such a link can persist with an internal image. The imprecision in the memory of the recorded image, the oneiric, the passage of time and the ambiguity with regard to photographic techniques is something I am interested in investigating.

In my work there is the idea of the passage of time. That’s why my suggestion is to stop, in order to be invited to the travel.

I do not recognize myself in any tradition, but if I had to choose a group I would place myself in the questions that do not get answers or have their own logic, without certainties but with intuition. To produce a work that attempts to think about the world around us and to be able to transit it, letting art pass through it as an experience. My references: colleagues, fellow travelers; I detail here some of the artists and experiences that inevitably influence my work. Others are appointed because I am interested in their ideas: Leila Tschopp, Viviana Blanco, Marcela Sinclair, Leticia El Halli Obeid, Ezequiel García, Karin Idelson, Laura Spivak. In another context, Olafur Eliasson, Rosangela Renó, Hiroshi Sujimoto, the first landscapes of Muybridge, the rays of William Jennings, Gustave Le Gray, Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre, the daguerreotypes of Albert Sands Southworth & Josiah Johnson Hawes, and all the photographers and daguerreotypist of the mid-nineteenth century; John Shaw Smith and his calotypes, Pablo Siquier, Max Gómez Canle, Luis Lindner, Jorge Macchi, Gabriel Valansi, Batlle Planas, the light in Denis Hooper, Andrei Tarkovsky, Sokurov, Katherine Mansfield, David Lynch, Luc Tuymans, Michel Gondry, Won Kar-Wai. The constant transformations of love, tragedy and beauty in the work of Félix González Torres, Damien Hirst and the impossibility and desire to live forever, Art Detroy, a romantic feeling of the sublime; painters who travel, Caspar Friedrich, Vik Muniz and the illusions, Ernesto Neto and his multisensorial aircrafts, Gabriel Orozco, Thomas Struth, Tillmans, Jeff Wall, Gordon Matta-Clark, Remedios Varo, the grotesque and macabre tales of Jake and Dinos Chapman, Martin Creed and his projects with lights, Lars Ramberg and his anti-monuments, Oscar Niemayer, Tacita Dean, the great poetry of Federico Manuel Peralta Ramos. The writers and directors of science fiction films that generated in me different retro-futuristic mental landscapes, Stanislaw Lem and Tarkovsky in Solaris, Isaac Asimov, George Miller, Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury, Arthur Clark, and so on. I also think that travels, dinners and talks with friends and colleagues are very influential in me.

All the work by Gabriel Valansi, I am interested in the horrifying beauty of his poetic, his exhibitions in the Museum of Modern Art of Buenos Aires (MAMBA) and in ICI were flawless. Esteban Pastorino, and his work on the architecture by Salamone. The house of the collector by Provisorio Permanente, its surrounding mystery and their exhibition in Ruth Benzacar Gallery. All Max Gómez Canle, his exhibition in the Recoleta Cultural Center and in Braga Menéndez Gallery; Santiago Iturralde in Appetite Gallery, the work “Tide” [“Marea”] at the Theater Festival. Jorge Gutiérrez's actions; Marcolina Dipierro in Museum of Modern Art of Rosario, the lighting atmosphere was really wonderful; Carolina Antoniadis at the Recoleta Cultural Center; “World” [“Mundo”] by Karin Idelson in the San Martín Cultural Center; Eduardo Basualdo; Florencia Rodríguez Giles; The Living-room by Leandro Erlich, it was the first time that a work blew my head up, especially when I couldn’t find my reflection in the mirror. The work of Jorge Macchi, that with so little says so much. Marcela Sinclair and the traces of absence in her “vacuum cleaner”. The humor and irony in the works of Federico Manuel Peralta Ramos, his exhibition in MAMBA; Sebastián Gordín in Ruth Benzacar Gallery and its obscurantism; Víctor Grippo at the Museum of Latin American Art of BA (MALBA). The oneiric fables of Viviana Blanco; the murals by Ezequiel García; the last quasi-metaphysical paintings by Leila Tschopp; Adrián Villar Rojas and Marcelo Pombo in Ruth Benzacar Gallery; Roberto Aizemberg; León Ferrari in the Recoleta Cultural Center; Ana Gallardo in Appetite Gallery. The transmutation of nature in the work of Fabiana Imola; the whole work of Andrea Ostera, and specially her 22 views of the house at night, the presence by the absence of the image.