Open-Ended Beginnings
Arts Illustrated|December 2019 - January 2020
Swiss-French photographer Hélène Binet, best known as the leading architectural photographer who still insists on shooting analogue, spoke to us about the ambiguous nature of photography that extends into her practice
- Vani Sriranganayaki
Open-Ended Beginnings

In a 1944 study, 34 students from the Massachusetts College were shown a short film and asked to describe it. The film featured two triangles and a circle moving across a two-dimensional space and a stationary rectangle, left open on one side. One of the test subjects saw the film for what it was: geometric shapes moving about a plane. Everyone else constructed their own narratives around it. Rather than registering them as inanimate shapes, they imagined them to have human emotions with explosive back-stories – the triangles were ‘bullying’ the circle; they were ‘angry’ and ‘frustrated’; the circle was ‘worried’. The moral? Stories are universal. The study resonated closer to home when I saw a particular a series of work by Swiss-French photographer Hélène Binet. They were all landscape images in black and white – frames filled to the brim with dense branches of trees, close-ups of wheat fields and cherry blossoms. There were no titles or explanations and the images carried with them very little contexts of time or location. From afar, they simply looked like heavily scratched surfaces. I stared at them for days, sure that there was a pattern hidden there somewhere. I just had to find it. ‘In photography, I’m interested in space. I’m interested in nature because I think it’s a way of finding places where human emotion, human wondering, human memories are projected, sheltered, hidden and expressed. So in the end what I’m looking for is to try to extract from the world an important, emotional moment or questions that us as humans have,’ she said over a telephonic conversation, her words slow and measured.

Denne historien er fra December 2019 - January 2020-utgaven av Arts Illustrated.

Start din 7-dagers gratis prÞveperiode pÄ Magzter GOLD for Ä fÄ tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.

Denne historien er fra December 2019 - January 2020-utgaven av Arts Illustrated.

Start din 7-dagers gratis prÞveperiode pÄ Magzter GOLD for Ä fÄ tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.

FLERE HISTORIER FRA ARTS ILLUSTRATEDSe alt
Arts Illustrated

A Sky Full Of Thoughts

Artist James Turrell’s ‘Twilight Epiphany Skyspace’ brings together the many nuances of architecture, time, space, light and music in a profound experience that blurs boundaries and lets one roam free within their own minds

time-read
4 mins  |
June - July 2020
Arts Illustrated

We Are Looking into It

Swiss-based artists Jojakim Cortis and Adrian Sonderegger talk to us about the evolving meaning and purpose of photography and the many perspectives it lends to history

time-read
6 mins  |
June - July 2020
Cracked Wide Open
Arts Illustrated

Cracked Wide Open

Building one of the world’s largest domes was no mean task for anyone, let alone an amateur goldsmith, so how did Filippo Brunelleschi accomplish building not one, but two of them?

time-read
2 mins  |
June - July 2020
Arts Illustrated

In Search of a Witness

In conversation with legendary artist Arpana Caur on all things epiphanic, on all things pandemic, and on all things artistic

time-read
6 mins  |
June - July 2020
Arts Illustrated

Where the Shadows Speak

The founder of Sarmaya Arts Foundation takes us through the bylanes of his journey with Sindhe Chidambara Rao, the custodian of the ancient art form of shadow puppetry – Tholu Bommalata

time-read
4 mins  |
June - July 2020
Bodies in Motion
Arts Illustrated

Bodies in Motion

What happens to the memory of a revelatory experience when it is re-watched through the frames of a screen? It somehow makes the edges sharper and the focal point clearer, as we discover through Chandralekha’s iconic Sharira

time-read
4 mins  |
June - July 2020
Arts Illustrated

Faces in the Water

As physical ‘masks’ become part of our life, we take a look at artists working with different aspects of ‘faces’ and the things that lurk beneath the surface.

time-read
8 mins  |
June - July 2020
Arts Illustrated

A Meeting at the Threshold

The immortal actor exemplified all that is admirable about his profession, from his creative choices to his work philosophy, and his passing was a low blow. This is our tribute to the prince among stars – Irrfan

time-read
5 mins  |
June - July 2020
The Imperfect Layout To The Imperfect Mystery
Arts Illustrated

The Imperfect Layout To The Imperfect Mystery

Jane De Suza’s ‘The Spy Who Lost Her Head’ doesn’t feature a protagonist with superhuman skills of deduction, nor a plot that fits together like a jigsaw puzzle. Here, quirks and imperfections are pushed into the spotlight

time-read
5 mins  |
April - May 2020
Free and Flawed
Arts Illustrated

Free and Flawed

Greta Gerwig revitalises the literary classic, Little Women, highlighting the literary journey of its temperamental and wonderfully flawed female protagonist, Jo March

time-read
5 mins  |
April - May 2020