MONDO GALERIA presents for the first time in Madrid "Proscenium" a solo exhibition by Javier Silva Meinel (Lima, Peru. 1949). It is an exhibition that without being retrospective or an anthology runs through the entire oeuvre of this prolific photographer (or ethnographer) who has managed to find, represent and understand Peruvian folklore.
Twenty five images to glimpse through the eye of Silva the naturalness and humor connecting all simultaneous worlds that inhabit the Andes, from the Pacific coast to the Amazon rainforest. His works has been showed around the world and it is included on important international collections. This exhibition is part of Festival OFF Photoespaña 2015.

Proscenium.
 

 
Just only few authors manage to cross the space between the camera and the subject.
 
As Photography is increasingly further from truth to be closer to narrative, to tell what one sees it is not simply to present it to a viewer, but, to confront the Viewer with it.
To create certain guidelines to distance us from the obvious thing it is much harder than to master a technical expertise. 
 
When these two conditions meet up, we face an unparalleled visual epiphany. This is photography as art, as revelation and as a trigger for ideas.
 
To jump from performer to audience without an hegemonic dispute it is a mastery not found very often, and it is then when a literary image becomes an icon, when a person becomes a sign.
 
The Other, as it has been known for centuries does no longer exist, we live into a democratization of processes which makes all of us participants of a choral creation of archetypes.

 

Photography is essential in this process, it vanishes (for better or for worse) social differences. All we have seen, and have consumed, The Other, the faraway self, the different one. But until only very recent, we have not had the opportunity to enjoy it, to appreciate it, to understand it.
 
Otherness disappears as archaic iconography to be part of the process of contemporary creation of which Javier Silva Meinel is a pioneer. He is an expert, a scholar, a shaman.
 
Breaking the barrier of ethnic documentation creates a new way for which photography (and art) were not prepared. It creates a scene where The Other passes from being observed to be protagonist; it generates a break of axis where the new applied rules replace observation with respect and qualification with empathy. This is the path that takes contemporary photography towards a participative ethnography, and towards shared creation. Without a dispute, without wars, based on understanding and collaboration.

 

About Javier Silva Meinel

 
Javier Silva Meinel was born in the city of Lima, Peru in the year 1949. He enter in contact with photography as a student at the University of Lima. In 1971 he began his work as a photographer and he was dedicated to landscape and commercial work. From 1984 he ventured into portrait, interested in rituals, customs and Andean religious festivals, as well as in the world of native Amazonia. Since his first solo exhibition "Searching for a photographic intention" (Lima, 1978) a series of solo and group exhibitions at home and abroad followed, such as:
 
 
“Municipalidad de Lima“, “Palacio del Inca Tupac Yupanqui“ Cuzco, “Museo de la Nación“, “Circulo de Bellas Artes“ Madrid, “Brooklyn Museum“ N.Y. etc.

 He exhibits at Throckmorton Fine Art in N.Y.C.
In 2001 he exhibits at “Cleaveland Museum”, Cleaveland, and takes part of an important group show in Venezuela “29 Miradas de un mismo lugar” as well as at the Festival of Noorderlicht en Gronningen, Holland.  Again he exhibits at Throckmorton Fine Art in N.Y.C. “Tres visiones del Perú”; at Eye See Gallery Belgium; and in Palma de Mallorca, España (PalmaPhoto 2003); at Museo de las Américas in Denver Colorado, USA; and at Museum of Photographics Arts of San Diego, California.


 
His works are in private collections and at museum ones as: Brooklyn Museum, Houston Museum, Museum of
Photographic Art in San Diego, Museo de las Américas, Denver, Colorado, Art Museum New Orleans  and at the new Museo de Arte in Lima.


 
He has published the following books: “El Libro de los Encantados” in 1988; “Acho, Altar de Arena” in 1992; “Perú, fiestas y costumbres” in 1997; “Calendario Perú, Tiempos de fiesta” in 1998. "Visiones de Machu Picchu" in 2011 and in 2012 his work was published in Spain into the collection Photo Bolsillo by  La Fábrica Editorial.
In 1990 he receives the grant of John Simon Guggenheim Foundation.